A Brand New Chaos
by rochchen
Summary: One was the heir to an obscure martial arts, the other a crown prince to an empire spanning hundreds of worlds. An accidental meeting brought the two of them together. Just how will their destinies become intertwined? "You shall become my wife!" "No way! Turn me back into a man!" A restart for my other fic. AU / X-Over with Sekai no Hate de Aimashou.
1. Chapter 1

Disclaimer: I do not own the rights to Ranma 1/2 and Sekai no Hate de Aimashou. Both works belong to their respective authors. This writing was made purely as fan work and no profit is to be made from it. 

* * *

Somewhere in the forests of Japan, a mid-age man looked over a covered hole on the ground. He wore a dirty white gi, a similarly colored scarf was tied over his head to hide his thinning hair. Screams of a young child could be heard over the angry hisses of cats coming from inside the hold, but the man paid them no mind. His face turned into an angry frown as he thought of the past failed attempts.

"That no-good son of mine, how hard can it be to learn a legendary technique such as the Neko-ken?" Genma muttered to himself. "To come out screaming like a little girl after the first few attempts; why was I cursed with such a worthless son?"

He turned to the skies in exasperation. Unnoticed to him however, someone had heard his voice and started homing in on his position.

"Genma Saotome, I've finally found you!" He stilled at the sound of the familiar voice. Hesitantly, he started turning around to face the source, wary of what's to come.

"H-honey, I can explain…" He stuttered out as he faced the lovely figure of his wife. A beautiful angel of death currently stood before him. He had no time to admire the vision as she pointed the unsheathed blade of the Saotome honor sword at him.

"Explain what? How you ran out the house in the middle of the night with our only son, leaving behind your wife with just a single piece of paper as some sort of excuse? How it took me almost four years to track you down as you moved all over Japan, piling up debts and accounts of petty thievery?" Nodoka spat out as she glared at him in anger. Her auburn hair was put up in its traditional bun. However her current attire was quite different from how she's usually described. Instead of a traditional kimono she was dressed in a kendogi and a hakama that allowed for free movement. As a descendent of a minor Samurai she showed pride in her heritage through the way she handled her sword, a far cry from the usually clumsy way she chose to portray.

"I shall be lenient and give you as much time as to need to explain while we're on our way home. Now where's our son?"

Genma broke out in cold sweat as he thought of his screaming child in the pit behind him. Suddenly he noticed that it was too quiet, otherwise his wife would have noticed it long ago. He broke his gaze away from Nodoka to face the pit, just as the heavy stone covering burst open.

A small figure broke through the covering and landed before them. Genma stood on his guard, minding that he had his wife behind him. The dust gradually settled down, and the figure was revealed to be Ranma, crouching on the ground on all fours in a manner resembling a cat. He's learned it, Genma thought with a surge of pride before Ranma pounced. His son surged forward with a slash, his hands in the forms of claws. Genma's gi was turned into confetti and he had no time to react as his son landed on his face and attacked with a multitude of scratches. He was no match for his son in this state.

Nodoka watched in shock and horror as her son took down Genma in a matter of minutes. Her sword had been lowered in her moment of inattention, thus she was too late to react as her son jumped on her. She closed her eyes in reflex as she was pushed off balance, awaiting the pain that is to come after having witnessed what had happened to her husband. She could feel her back on the ground and a weight on top of her, but there were no further signs of attack. Hesitantly, she opened her eyes to be met with the sight of her son curled up in her lap, purring contently.

"What have you done now, Genma?" she sighed as she absently put a hand on Ranma's head to pet him. 

* * *

Nodoka glared unwaveringly at her husband as he tended to the campfire. Though normally not one to cook Genma doubted his wife would offer to help in the current mood, not to mention how she would react if he pushed it off to their son like he used to. After their son had gone asleep she had kicked him awake and forced him to lead them to their camp. She put Ranma to rest inside the tent then tended to his wounds but had refused to speak to him. Dinner was a somber affair; both ate their fill after leaving enough for Ranma in the case that he was hungry after he woke up, at Nodoka's insistence. Genma put the utensils aside to wash in the streams later, then turned to face the music.

"Explain." It was a single command. It left no room for negotiation and was promising hell if he didn't do as he was told.

"W-well, you see…I was training Ranma in the dreaded Neko-ken…" Genma began, searching through his gi before taking out a small booklet. "I learned of it from the guide to legendary techniques here."

Genma handed the booklet to his wife, who started leafing through it. He started sweating profusely as a vein began to bulge of his wife's head. A look of surprise came on his face as she separated two pages that had been stuck together. The hand holding the booklet started to shake as it tightened over the booklet.

"Gen-ma…" His name's two syllables were deliberately drawn out as she fought to control her temper. She soon lost the battle.

"You IMBECILE! Only a complete MORON would teach this to their child!" She shouted out as she shoved the pages with the big bold words of "THINGS NOT TO TEACH" into his face. The book went on to proclaim that the Neko-ken was listed as an example of that and only an idiot would think of teaching it to their children.

"What! No! It was a trick! I never noticed that those two pages were stuck together! I thought it was an introduction to the book!"

"You think that gives you an excuse to throw our son into a pit of starving CATS?!"

The sound of Ranma stirring immediately drew her attention however, and she left to tend to him while sending Genma a look that promised future retribution. Genma sighed at the temporary reprieve.

Ranma blinked his blurry eyes open as he returned to consciousness. He wondered what happened since the last thing he could remember was being inside the pit. He shuddered before stopping his thoughts from heading down that direction. He could smell the scent of his father nearby, and he relaxed further as he noticed that he was inside their tent. There was a new, yet familiar scent nearby. Ranma realized suddenly that this was something that he wouldn't have noticed normally, but before he could ponder about it the tent opened and he was met with an auburn haired woman that tugged at his memories.

"How do you feel, Ranma?" Nodoka put a pleasant smile on her face as she entered the tent.

"Who are you? Pretty lady…" Ranma said after staring at her for a while. "You seem familiar..."

Nodoka's smile faltered for a moment at the question, she schooled her features and turned to answer her son, silently noting down another thing to punish Genma for. "Don't you remember me? I'm your mother."

The words reverberated through him for a moment before they finally made sense in his mind. His heart pounded as the memories of those nights crying himself to sleep flashed before him. Why did you leave? Did you not want me anymore? Questions and questions came as he glomped his mother and held on tightly, afraid that if he let go, she would disappear.

As her son broke down in her lap, Nodoka gently hugged him and did her best to soothe him, all the while silently cursing Genma in her mind.

* * *

-Kingdom of Ordlock, _unspecified location_-

It was an open secret that the King of Ordlock favored the mother of his second son out of his many consorts. The second prince of Ordlock, Emilio, was also a favorite of the public due to his compassion, and the down to earth way he interacted with his people. He was hailed a genius from a young age, showing great aptitude for magic, strategy, and economics as well as many other academics. However, most of this changed when prince Emilio lost his mother to an illness. Torn with the loss of his love, the King became a recluse and left most of the day to day managements to his ministers. Without the watchful eyes of the King, the power play between factions became more blatant. Assassinations became something of a norm, and as a nail that stood out, Emilio was often a target. Lost without the gentle guidance of his mother, and faced with the cruelty and greed of the Nobles around him, he gradually became dejected and lost the spark in his eyes.

The situation wasn't helped by the fact that the people's expectations of him exceeded that of the crown prince. Though a being of great renown, his fame was mainly due to his position as the heir to the throne. His personality also left much to be desired. With the tendency to treat people as tools and prone to fits of anger, it was no wonder he didn't get much support. It was a source of great frustration to him.

Tonight it seems, things are about to come to a point.

In the dead of the night, a long haired man sat behind an elaborate desk as he waited for some news. The door opened and closed with a simple click, and another figure appeared kneeling in front of him.

"Report" The man ordered.

"My Lord, the assassination was a failure. The killer was caught midway and detained. However we managed to remotely trigger the toxins implanted in his body, so there is no worry of tracing him back to us."

"Dammit! This has been the 104th failure. Can't you incompetents do anything right?!" He leaned forward to slam his hands on the desk. "If this goes on I may as well try and do it myself!"

"If I may, My Lord, Prince Emilio will soon be of age to participate in official duels." The servant informed. The man stood up and walked to the curtain covered window, pondering.

"That's not a bad idea. A confrontation between brothers! Soon the world will see the full might of my power!" He threw open the curtains, letting the moonlight in.

"No longer will they doubt my right to inherit the throne!" The crown prince of Ordlock turned with a cruel smile on his face.

A storm is gathering on the horizon.

* * *

A few years have passed since Ranma and his father had returned to live at their home. Though he would always wonder how his skills would have progressed had he continued with the journey, he thought that the life he has now was much better than what he had. His first love will always be martial arts, but having returned to his mother's side gave him a chance to reconnect with her. Along with the additions to their lives, he was finally able to understand what it truly felt to have a family.

He winced as a passerby inadvertently pressed upon a sore spot when bumping into him, startling him out of his moment of reminiscence. His father had been rather insistent on going on a training trip these past few days. Of course, the reason behind this is probably due to the fact that his mother was away for a few days visiting friends. Without her there to stop him, he probably thought he could get away with it. One would think he would have learned from past experiences. Anyway, he'd long since grown past the phase of trusting his father blindly, and always took what he said with a grain of salt. Besides, he had a duel to get to so he was reluctant to leave.

His father objected by saying that his opponent forfeited the duel when he did not appear at the specified time. This would be true in a normal case. However, one has to take special disabilities into account, and believe it or not, his opponent had the worst sense of direction. He felt that he had to cut him some slack and wait until he appeared. Naturally his father disagreed and on the third day tried to take him away by force. It took him the whole night trying to lose him and in the end he had to fight him outright. He almost didn't make it.

Luckily by the time he returned to the specified location, he could see that his friend-slash-opponent had just arrived. Ahead of him stood a teenage boy, he wore a tiger striped bandanna to hold up his bangs, and tied the legs of his trousers with bindings to keep the normally loose garment from obstructing his movement. At his feet lay a rather large backpack, on top of which was an oil-paper umbrella. Both Ranma and he were students at the local all-boys Junior High School, which was infamous for its schoolyard fights. For the pony-tailed martial artist though, it was perfect in the way that it gave him many challenges. Right now, the greatest one of them all stood right in front of him.

"Dammit Ranma Saotome, how dare you run away from our man-to-man duel!" The boy cried.

"Hey cut it out Ryoga, I'm right here!" Ranma called out.

"Hmph, glad to see you didn't become a coward." Ryoga turned to face him.

"Give me a break! I waited for three days for you to appear, and I had to fight my pops just to be able to return here. How hard is it to get to the vacant lot behind your house anyway?"

"Shut up Ranma! You know how it is!" Ryoga shouted, hiding his embarrassment behind a wall of rage. "You shall pay for the shame of the lunch bread!"

"Man, you sure can keep a grudge. I already told you that I forgot my lunch that day and had to get one from the cafeteria. You know how it is a free-for-all during our school's lunch time. Besides, didn't I already pay you back a few days later?" Ranma said nonchalantly, putting his arms behind his head.

"That's not the point! After that you humiliated me several times in front of the whole school! I've become the school's laughing stock!" Ryoga grabbed his umbrella from the top of his pack and pointed at Ranma.

"Enough talking! Time to settle this once and for all!" He yelled, changing into a stance.

"Fine with me!" Ranma smirked.

"Don't think I'll go easy on you just because you're already hurt!"

"As if I'll need a handicap!"

With a yell of their battle cry, both combatants surged forward. Ryoga's style took advantage of his natural endurance and strength. It consisted of mainly straight forward attacks that overwhelmed their opponents. However, Ranma's style puts emphasis on maneuverability and adaptation. His greater agility allowed him to dodge Ryoga's strikes and seek weaknesses to counter. It takes more than a punch to take him down as Ranma had discovered in the past. Due to his forced nomadic lifestyle, Ryoga's natural endurance had already grown by leaps and bounds.

The duo separated from each other to regain some strength. Both were already breathing heavily. Getting repeatedly hit by Ranma still wore down his stamina. Ryoga didn't think he could take more of those. On the other side, Ranma wondered the same thing. Despite being straight forward attacks, Ranma still couldn't dodge all of them. The strength behind those punches was nothing to sneer at. He could take maybe one or two more of those punch at the most.

The next few moments are going to be decisive; the two came to that conclusion at almost the same time.

Ryoga charged, putting his remaining strength behind this final attack. Ranma instead waited for him to come. At the last moment, he let his body fall back in the direction of the punch. Going with the downward motion, he turned this into a flip kick, catching Ryoga on the chin and sending him flying skyward. His arms launched out as his head neared the ground, and he flipped himself back into and upwards position. He trudged forward to check on the condition of Ryoga, who had fallen on his back.

"Do-do you concede defeat?" Ranma managed to heave out.

Ryoga struggled to get up but couldn't find the strength, after a few futile attempts, he grudgingly accepted his loss. Relieved, Ranma was able to relax and collapsed by his side.

"You know, my mom's coming home today so I can't be back too late." Ranma gasped. "Let's get you home first though."

"M-maybe after I've rested for a while" Ryoga was too tired to argue.

"Tomorrow's a school day; if you want to go I can come pick you up in the morning." Ranma offered.

"Fine…" Ryoga sighed, closing his eyes in exhaustion.

The two boys lay on the ground watching the sky as it reddened from the setting sun. It was quite a while before either of them got up.

* * *

-Kingdom of Ordlock, _unnamed battlefield_-

It has already been a few years since his brother issued that duel, Emilio noted. In the beginning, a duel was a practice used by the nobles to settle disputes. Over the years however as the power struggle grew worse harsher rules were imposed. Nowadays duels were done to the death. Special dispensations were given for the Royalty, of course. Instead of restricting the duel to one-on-one the two combatants were allowed to call up as much reinforcement as they wished. There were no limits. In other words, this was war.

For years the war had waged on between the two factions in the kingdom, almost tearing it apart. Today however, everything finally came to an end. The atmosphere was somber as the sound in the blood stricken battlefield gradually ceased. Everyone's attention was drawn to the two figures on top of the small hill. The heavy downpour drenched everyone currently present, but no one seemed to mind.

"I was wrong, Emilio. Isn't this enough?" The long haired prince prostrated himself before his younger brother.

"It is meaningless for there to be more sacrifices, there is no need!" Emilio remained silent even as his brother grabbed his robe, seeking that final line of salvation. "Please! Are we not brothers?!"

"You forget, brother." He calmly stated as he brushed away his older brother's hands. "It was you who started this war."

Adding some magic to his sword, the blade easily slid through the neck of the crown prince of Ordlock. There were no cries of victory, only a silent relief that the battle was finally over. He could feel wetness on his cheeks, but they were not from his tears. He had long since run out of those to give.

"Congratulations, your highness." The voice of his advisor interrupted his internal monologue. "You have just risen to first place in line to inherit the throne. Representatives from various countries have already arrived to discuss the future of our kingdom."

Emilio's gaze followed the hand of his advisor as he gestured to the crowd gathering behind him. Already he could see the smirks on their faces, none of them even bothered to hide the looks of greed on their faces.

"Nothing has really changed…" Emilio sighed. The sky continued to rain. Perhaps the heavy downpour could wash away the bloodstains from the battlefield, he decided.

* * *

Ranma sighed as he removed his sodden uniform in the solitude of his classroom. He had stayed after school to answer a challenge. The rain had started in the middle of that and the few spectators that had been around rapidly dispersed. The challenger had been some brawler with some perceived slight against Ranma after he had been turned down by a girl. In the boy's school he had attended back in Junior High the boys would just duke it out for whatever reason. It was simpler times. After he began attending this mixed gender High School, the number of formal challenge seem to have risen instead. The reason he chose this school was because they included martial arts training in their physical education curriculum. He expected there to be more martial artists attending but this was getting ridiculous.

The brawler seemed to have some formal training but his attention tended to stray to somewhere in the crowd. Ranma had toyed with him for a while in the beginning, thinking that he must have had something up his sleeve. After the crowd dispersed however he seemed to have lost his bravado. Ranma, deciding not to waste more time made quick work of him.

"Man, that guy sure wasn't much of a challenge." Ranma complained to himself as he wrung out his uniform. "I can't believe I stayed after school for this. That wasn't even worth getting soaked for."

He looked out the window; the heavy rain didn't look as if it would let up any time soon. Ranma laid his uniform out to dry and searched his school bag. He decided against changing after a while since he would get wet on the way back anyway. Changing back to his wet uniform, he packed up his bag and was about to leave when the building started shaking.

"What was that? An earthquake?" He barely managed to get out before the next quake took down the side of the school building, including half his classroom.

"Crap, what if someone else was still inside?" Ranma jumped out the building and started searching for survivors.

Amidst the wreck, lay a foreigner with dirty blonde hair. He didn't seem to be visibly injured but something must have gone wrong since he was unable to move even considering the fact that he was stuck inside the rubble.

"Did someone sabotage the gate?" The stranger muttered to himself as he considered the situation. "…could there have been some remnants of my brother's faction?"

He tried to move himself out of the rubble but found his body not responding. "Damn, must be due to the shock from the gate crash. It'll be a while before I recover."

A voice called out nearby, he turned to see a black haired teenage boy with his hair in a pig tail stepping in carefully amongst the wreckage.

"Hello? Is anyone alive in there?" Ranma called out before noticing the man underneath the large support beam. He headed that way quickly to inspect the damage. "Hey, you alright? I'll get you out quickly."

'A native of this world?' The man wondered before Ranma's words pulled him out of his thoughts. He was startled when Ranma effortlessly moved the large beam out of the way. 'He's strong despite his looks, and I didn't detect the use of magic.'

"Let's get you out of here" Ranma said before moving to lift the injured man.

"How dare you touch me!"

"Calm down, man. There's no telling when the rest of the building will collapse, so we have to get out of here quickly." With his body still somewhat numb, the foreigner could only vocally protest as they moved out of the danger zone. Ranma put him down on the ground after they were clear and looked over for injuries.

"It doesn't look like you were hurt anywhere important. But you can't move, can you?" Before the man could come up with an explanation however, they were interrupted by a dark figure that appeared out of the tree.

"Prince Emilio, so you survived. Luckily I had the foresight of remaining behind to ensure your demise." The figure said. The sun had set a while ago and the rain clouds blocked out any remaining light. There weren't any lights on in the school as well, so any features were hard to distinguish in the darkness.

"An assassin? At a time like this…" Emilio cursed his luck. He was surprised when Ranma stood up to face the assassin, getting into a ready stance. "Stop! This doesn't concern you, run away while you still can!"

"It is a martial artist's duty to protect the weak! I won't leave an injured man to die while I run away like a coward. Even if we have just met, I will save you." Ranma stated confidently, surprising him with his words.

"How touching. Unfortunately you'll have to die since I have to eliminate all witnesses. Even in a back water world like this." The assassin chuckled before charging at Ranma. The prince could only look on helplessly as the two engaged in heavy combat.

The assassin was quite good at what he does, Ranma decided. He wore a dark cloak that though hindered him in some way, also helped mask his movements as he struck viciously. Though the strikes seemed random at first, they always headed towards a weak point and this made him rather predictable in that sense. It looked like this assassin favored a rapid in-and-out strategy as he is used to hitting a vital point heavily before withdrawing. However, Ranma's agility was on par with him and it was all he could do to narrowly avoid those strikes. A change in the man's stance quickly alerted Ranma to something amiss. He leapt backwards as something flashed through the space he occupied previously.

"It seems as if I've greatly underestimated the residents of this world" The assassin panted. In his hand he held a large knife, "time to take the gloves off!"

'Damn, if only I could move.' Emilio watched desperately as Ranma fought for their lives. He was already getting some feeling back in his extremities, but he still found them unresponsive to his commands. Cuts and nicks were starting to bleed over Ranma's arms and face as he dodged the assassin's strikes, his uniform was also getting torn to pieces.

'I can't let this drag on for too long,' Ranma analyzed as he twisted out of the assassin's thrust, wincing as another cut appeared over his stomach. He could see that the man was getting fatigued, but the damage that his arms had received was already affecting his reaction time, and his head was beginning to feel light as he lost more and more blood.

'I'm going to have to take a risk!' He decided. Letting out a battle cry, he charged the assassin head on. His opponent responded by driving the knife down his side, thinking that he would abort his attack and move out of the way. He was surprised when Ranma moved his arm into the way of the knife.

Gritting his teeth as the blade bit into his arm, Ranma trained more power into the other as the fist made contact with the assassin's face. Following up, he grabbed the flying man's face before he crashed the head into the ground using his remaining strength.

The man appeared to be out cold as he removed his hand. Ranma gasped in relief after he confirmed the fact and bit down a cry as he removed the knife from his arm. Throwing the bloody knife aside, he turned to see that Emilio had managed to get up on his feet. He ignored the blood flowing down the side of his arm as he staggered towards the prince. Half way there, he heard the tell-tale whoosh of something going fast in the air coming from behind him, but fatigued body was too sluggish to respond. He stared down in surprise at what could only be fingertips protruding from his chest.

Emilio watched in shock as Ranma fell on his back, the assassin's elongated arm retracting as he removed his hand from the hole he made in Ranma's chest. Blocked by Ranma's body, neither of them noticed when the assassin had recovered. Surprise quickly turned to anger as he shot a bolt of magic towards the would-be killer. The following explosion left not a single trace of his corpse.

"Foolish man…giving up your life to protect a perfect stranger. Could you have been the one I was looking for?" Emilio stared sadly as blood began to pool underneath the body. He knelt down to examine the man who saved him, only to be surprised as he gave a weak moan of pain. 'He's still alive?!'

He rapidly racked his brain for a solution as he was racing against time. 'The only thing I have now is…that medicine! It's not what it was meant for but the transformation should reverse some of the damage.'

Decision made, he took out a hardened vial, cursing the fact that he hadn't taken the time to replenish the case of emergency supplies he carried. Unplugging it, he forced the liquid down Ranma's throat and watched as it worked its magic. Wounds lessened as his body underwent a change. Seeing that Ranma was out of the critical stage, he summoned a gate and informed his staff to prepare for emergency treatment. He picked up the body before rushing through the entrance. The gate vanished, leaving no trace of its appearance. The blood on the ground was gradually washed away by the torrential rain.

* * *

Is this heaven? Ranma wondered as he floated in an out of consciousness. He felt extremely comfortable as he lay on something so soft that he could almost believe it was a cloud. He could feel something flow around his body as he moved slightly and something felt off about it. He put it down to the out of body experience he's having and turned around to snuggle into the softness. His eyes snapped open as he felt something shift in his chest.

"What the hell is this?!" Ranma screamed as he patted his chest only for his hands to encounter a pair of well formed and bouncy breasts. Quickly he snuck a hand down between his legs to confirm the absence of a certain organ before jumping out of bed. Spotting a full length mirror nearby, he quickly rushed towards it to examine himself.

The person that stared back at him was a far cry from the one that had done so before. Dressed in a white negligee, the figure was without a doubt feminine. The garment accentuated her prominent bust, bunching up at the thin waist before fanning out at the wide hips. Crimson red locks flowed down her back and a few strands curled up around the face, giving emphasis to a pair of sapphire blue eyes. The wild unkempt hair completed the look of having just woken up that frankly would have belonged in one of the "gentleman's" magazines that some of his male classmates would pass around.

Her self-inspection was interrupted by the sudden opening of the doors. Her wakening must have triggered some monitor device since the timing was too close for it to be a coincidence. A man entered through the large double doors. He had long blond hair that was brushed back, a scarf was tied around his neck and he wore a tailcoat over a white shirt.

"Ah, you're already awake." The man gestured for several maid servants to enter, each with a piece of garment on her hand. "Please follow me after you have changed, everything will be explained."

Ranma was too surprised to respond as the maids replaced her clothing with practiced ease. They worked in sync as the sleepwear was removed; undergarments were placed on then covered by a new dress before she could protest. Another maid brushed out her hair before pinning it up her head with a flowery ornament. Her feet were clad in high-heeled shoes and she stumbled a bit as they rushed her out of the room once they were finished.

"What the hell is this about!" Ranma shouted at the man who was waiting outside.

"Please follow me, My Lord is waiting." The man repeated, turning around without waiting for a reply.

Seeing that she wasn't likely to get anything out of the man, Ranma had no choice but to do so. She walked behind him, silently fuming; tripping now and then as she got used to the unfamiliar footwear. Soon they arrived at a large hall where people were gathered. Massive columns lead up to vaulted ceilings and sunlight filtered in through the tinted glass of mosaic portraits. Idly Ranma noted that armed guards were placed on both sides as she was escorted up the red carpet towards a large throne where a familiar figure sat.

"You're…you're that man I saved the other day." Ranma dumbly noted. "What's going on? Why am I a girl?!"

It was too dark to see clearly the other night, and he was covered in dust so it was difficult to make out any distinguishing features. Seeing him clearly for the first time, he definitely gave a refined presence that only those who grew up in royalty could pull off. Ranma decided, recalling what she had seen on television of the royal couple of her country. He wore a simple white shirt over beige pants. Long grayish blonde hair covered a face that many would call handsome. Blue eyes turned to stare into her own as he rose from his seat.

"My name is Emilio, and I am the prince of this world." He stated. "I apologize, due to circumstances I had to use extreme measures to prevent the loss of your life."

"What?" Ignoring her outburst, the prince continued.

"This is a rare and expensive medicine available only to royalty." He took out a white vial emblazoned with a seal. "Though its main purpose is for gender transformation it has some healing properties. Sadly this was the only thing I had on hand at the time."

"Does that mean you can change me back?"

"Yes." The edge of Emilio's mouth went up into a smirk. He returned the vial to where it was inside his shirt. "However I won't."

"What!" Ranma charged forward to grab the prince. Her path was suddenly blocked by a pair of lances and she suddenly found herself grabbed by a multitude of guards. They were surprisingly strong as she wasn't able to shake them off. The prince walked down from his throne and the pair of lances uncrossed, leaving them face to face.

"Good, you have spunk, I like that." He stared into her defiant eyes. "When I was at that remote place that you call home, you protected me with your life. Thus you became valuable to me even though you are a low class being."

"Therefore I shall reward you." His eyes went up and down as he examined her. He looked satisfied with something before he asked. "What is your name?"

"Ranma Saotome!" She spat out.

"Very well, Ranma. You shall become my wife!" Emilio announced. The crowd gasped in surprise.

"Like hell...!" Her protests were cut off as the prince's hands closed over her throat. She could feel the guards release her as she was lifted off the ground.

"It would be in your best interests not to anger me. You do not have the power to oppose me." Ranma grabbed his hand weakly as she desperately gasped for breath. He released her, leaving her lying on the ground in a heap as he walked out of the hall. She was swiftly escorted back to the room after that.

* * *

"God dammit! Who does he think he is?!" Ranma cursed as she pounded on the door. "Let me out!"

The door wasn't budging an inch, even taking into consideration her incredible strength it barely even moved. A normal door would have been busted down by now; surely some other force was at work here. Giving up the job as useless, Ranma turned around to examine the room for some other avenues of escape.

The large canopy bed she woke up in lay in the middle of the room. Behind it, a full length mirror hung on the wall rising half-way up the ceiling. A small vanity sat at its side. The floor to ceiling windows seemed promising, but as she moved closer to examine it, the grand view of the city that lay beyond quickly dissuaded that notion as she doubted that she would a survive a fall from that height. Feeling spent, she plopped down on the bed, thinking about the surreal situation.

The click of the lock soon drew her attention and the doors opened to admit the blond man from before, this time followed by servants with a tray of tea and some light snacks. The latter Ranma followed with great interest. She seated herself at the small table beside the window where they were placed.

"Please excuse My Lord. Certain customs have to be observed and it wouldn't do for him to lose face in front of his subjects." The man said. Ranma scoffed at his remarks. His brows twitched slightly at Ranma as she began to gorge herself on the biscuits. "Where are my manners? I am advisor and personal servant to prince Emilio, you may call me Alfred."

Ranma made quick work of the snacks before downing the tea. Feeling sated for now, she let loose with another question that has been on her mind.

"Where am I?"

"You're currently located on Ordlit, a different world from the one you came from. I believe it is named Earth by your kind?" At Ranma's nod, Alfred continued. "We can use what is called Mana, a technology that may seem like magic, to create gates between spaces. Using this, we are able to interact with different planets."

Ranma was a bit dumbfounded by this, but Alfred nodded as if he expected that.

"It is natural that you would not know of it. The space in your world is a bit too unstable for large scale gate creation. Therefore contact was held off. Places like this are called borderland worlds."

"I see… Then why take a person like me here?"

"I cannot fathom what My Lord is thinking. However, he is not merely the ruler of this planet. My Lord is also the successor to a kingdom spanning various worlds. Now that he has decided to take you as his wife, it would be in your best interests not to do anything out of the line." He gestured the maids to clear the table. "You have now been confirmed as his consort, thus My Lord has left instructions for you to be treated as such. You may ask the guard outside for anything you wish. He has been ordered to pass them on, within reason, of course."

He exited the room followed by the maids, leaving Ranma to her thoughts. She stared off into space for a while before the last few words started to make sense in her mind. She ran to check that the door was indeed unlocked before deciding on a plan to escape. Looking around the room again, she found nothing that she could change into except for a lone coat hanging in the closet. Grumbling at still being forced into a dress, she put it on before going out the door.

The guard looked at her curiously but paid it no mind as she tried her best to look cute and inquire about the location of the gate. With a firm location in mind, she ran off before he realized what business exactly it was that she had with it.

The gate room was a vast dark place with tubes and lines going down the side. They crisscrossed together before leading to a set of simple-looking wooden double doors. There didn't seem to be any control consoles in the room so Ranma looked around for a bit before heading up to examine the hatch-like apparatus in the middle.

"Hmm….maybe if I turn this…" She reached out a hand to shift it, but it wouldn't budge. "Come on! What'll it take for this door to open?!"

Frustrated, she put both hands on it before pulling with all her might. When it suddenly loosened, she was knocked onto her back as the hatch began to spin. Stopping abruptly at certain point, the doors creaked open.

"Alright!" Cheering at her success, she headed through without consideration. What greeted her was a lush dark forest. Looking up, she could see stars and moonlight as they filtered through the leaves.

"It's night already? But the sun was just on the horizon?" She turned back only to see that the gate had already disappeared.

"I guess it can't be helped." Ranma muttered to herself and began to make her way through the forest.

Hours later, she was nearing the point where she would pull her hair out in frustration. She tried to navigate herself but hadn't found any stars she could use through the dense foliage, and the attire she had on was nowhere suited for trekking through a forest. Though she long discarded the pair of high heeled shoes, the long skirt of the dress kept getting snagged by branches as she moved through the underbrush.

"This thing is going to drive me crazy!" She glared at the torn cloth in her hands. "Why do girls put themselves in such stupid things?"

Deciding to finally do something about it, she grabbed a length of the skirt with both hands. Applying some force, she tore it down to a length she could manage easier, leaving it hanging around her knees. She moved around for a bit before getting satisfied with the freedom of movement it allowed.

"Well, that's one problem out of the way." Her stomach suddenly grumbled. Ranma sighed as she recalled that she hadn't had anything to eat apart from that small snack after she woke up. A faint scent of something roasting floated by, so she decided to follow her nose.

After that incident a few years ago, Ranma sometimes found that her five senses were sharper than usual. But she usually didn't put much thought into it, lest she be drawn back into the horrible memories of that training. Her trusty nose quickly led her to an unattended camp, where a piggish mammal of some sort lay over the fire on a roasting spit. Her hunger overrode her common sense as she was drawn over by the meat, mesmerized.

Reaching out a hand towards it, a shrill cry was her only warning before she jumped out of the way of a large round object crashing into where she was standing. Looking up, she was met with a purple haired girl. She had a pair of what appeared to be maces of Chinese origin and was dressed in long-sleeved blouses and pants with a pair of breastplates.

"汝等鼠輩!" She shouted something that she wasn't able to understand.

'Is that Chinese? When did I get to China?' Ranma barely had time to think before the girl attacked again. She waved her hands to try and placate her and explain, but it seemed that she wasn't able to get through the language barrier.

The girl's strikes were precise as she waved around those heavy weapons like they weighed nothing. It took everything Ranma's got to get out of the way as the metal came close to crushing her like a bug. She wasn't helped by her unfamiliarity with the new body. Different reach and center of weight made it quite difficult for her to counter. Having no choice, she employed the Saotome Ultimate Attack and retreated into the woods where her opponent would have more difficulty swinging those things around.

'What do I do?' Ranma racked her mind as she hid on a branch. 'Now that I think of it, I got the hang of walking and running pretty quick but this body is too different for me to fight in.'

However she wasn't given much time before she felt something heavy impact the tree. It started shaking before toppling to its side. She jumped to another tree only to fall short of its branch. Flailing blindly as she fell, her hand managed to catch something and she was able to swing to another branch. Another impact hit the tree and immediately it started to topple.

'This is getting me nowhere!' Trees were felled as Ranma jumped from tree to tree, getting a better idea of her new body's limitations. 'How can she smash down trees like that? Doesn't she care for the environment?'

Ranma gradually leapt back down as she could still hear the sound of trees falling down behind her. As she touched the ground however, the sounds eventually ceased and instead she could hear branches breaking as it followed her.

'Alright, I guess she needs to concentrate a bit for whatever technique she's using to smash through to work.' Ranma concluded. 'I'm faster on the ground now so she can't be stopping for that or she'll lose me.'

The situation was back on square one however, and she could hear that the girl was gaining on her. Suddenly she was pulled to a stop as her foot got caught on a root and she tripped. She fought to untangle it but was too late as the girl appeared, looking at her with a mad glee.

She swung the mace in a downward arc only to stop in surprise as it got caught on a low hanging branch. Releasing herself at the last moment, Ranma took advantage of her inattention to strike, making her lose her grip on the weapon. Without the pull of her hand keeping it to the branch, the mace succumbed to gravity and fell, right on top of its owner's head. Though it was funny to see her get knocked out by her own weapon, Ranma decided that discretion was the better part of valor, and it was better for her not to be around when she woke up.

Finally she arrived at another clearing and decided that she was far enough from danger. Leaning against a stump, she took a breather as she gazed up at the constellations.

'The view sure is great when there are no lights around to impede it.' She thought as she remembered the few instances her father was allowed to take her training far away enough from the city. She smiled when she recalled how her father explained how to orient herself using the night sky. Her smile turned into a frown as she tried to match up her mental map with the current sky.

"Wait a minute! I had my suspicions but according to these stars… I'm somewhere in China!" Ranma cried out in shock. Shrill hollering began to sound around the clearing.

'Crap, there are more of them? I'm completely surrounded!'

The trees barely shook before many figures jumped out, she could see maybe more than ten women coming at her from all sides simultaneously. There was no way she was getting out of this now. As she braced herself for the attack, she felt someone suddenly appear in front of her. There was a flash of heat before a deafening roar overcame all sounds.

Ranma felt herself being taken into someone's arms. She slowly opened her eyes to see the concerned look of Emilio. His face softened as he became relieved that nothing happened to her, a far cry from the arrogant and harsh look he had shown her earlier.

'How…how can he look so different?' The face was still the same, but the expressions on it made him look like another person. Ranma was amazed at the transformation of the prince.

"Are you alright?" Emilio asked, though he knew that there was nothing physically wrong with her body. She gave a confirmation, still in shock about the situation. He gave her a small smile before deciding to be clear with her now that he wasn't burdened by expectations.

"When I left for your world, all I wanted was to be someplace where no one knew me, and didn't already have an image of me fixed in their minds before even meeting me." He began.

"I had decided that in such a place, if someone could show me their unconditional love, then I would give them my all!" He released her as he swept his arms aside, trying to put emphasis on the "all".

"Ranma, the world is yours. Whatever your wish, then you shall receive!" He announced.

Ranma pushed him away, her face blushing furiously. She didn't give herself time to wonder why her heart had suddenly started beating so fast before she buried that thought underneath a wall of anger.

"Dammit! If you wanted to do that why did you have to go and ruin my life!"

"I don't give a crap what you think! All I want to do right now is to get HOME!" Ranma continued in a barrage as she vented her frustrations. The prince was taken aback as he received the brunt of her anger. He had no choice but to agree as he summoned a gate and led her through it, promising that he would take her back to Earth. Neither of them noticed a figure watching the devastated field, gripping their hands in anger.

Later on, as the Prince finally had time to read the diagnostic his medical officers had compiled on Ranma, he saw the notice that mentioned that as a result of the change, the patient's emotional level is likely to go from one end to another during the time her hormones balanced themselves out. There was a warning to not antagonize her. Emilio could only groan as he nursed the lump on his head.

* * *

The atmosphere in the Saotome living room was tense as Ranma knelt in front of her parents. Behind her sat Emilio who had accompanied her back. At her insistence the prince had provided some gender neutral shirts and slacks for her to wear, but there was no mistaking the feminine figure they were clad in. Genma sweated profusely as his gaze switched between that of his wife and his son-turned-daughter. Nodoka's face was set in stone, her expression unreadable as she stared at the full cup of steaming tea in front of her. Deciding to do something before his wife exploded, Genma took the initiative.

"Oh what did I do to deserve such an ungrateful son?!" He wailed, all the while sneaking glances at his wife. "I raised you to be a man amongst men, not this weak little girl!"

"Who are you calling a weak little girl?!" Ranma immediately jumped into the defense of her bruised ego, launching into attack. Genma tried to lead the two of them out into the garden as they traded blows, but Nodoka acted before that. She gently took the cup of tea to her lips and took a sip. The unmistakable click of the cup setting down on the table was faint, but somehow the quarreling duo sensed the change in atmosphere and immediately returned to their seats.

"Ranma, I would understand if you had told the truth but why did you tell such a lie? I promise not to judge you if you eloped with this man and had an operation, but to invent such a ridiculous story…" Nodoka trailed off.

"What! No!" Ranma objected. "I was telling the truth!"

"Do you still insist on holding onto such delusions?" Seeing that the situation was leading them nowhere, the prince decided to interrupt.

"As I have said, mere words would not suffice." He rose to his feet, pulling Ranma with him and gestured at both parents to follow them. He led them to the garden where he had summoned a gate.

"What's this thing doing in my yard?!" Genma complained.

"This is the gate Ranma spoke of." Emilio stated before reaching over and opening it. The door led them to the main entrance of his castle where they were greeted by rows of maids and other service staff. The Saotome parents were in shock as they were led in a grand tour of the castle grounds.

The massive lands where the Ordlit castle sat upon was nothing to sneeze at. It stood on a grand hill that provided an overlook on the capital of Ordlit. Large gardens surrounded the main building, containing more breeds of plants and flowers that one can think of. Apart from the major hall that served as the symbol of his power, the castle contained hundreds of rooms that served various purposes as well as grand ball rooms for guest entertainment.

The sun was beginning to set when the Saotomes were led back to their ancestral home. Ranma cast worrying glances at her mother, who still looked a bit out of sorts.

"I have returned Ranma after she expressed her desires to come home. However, I will not waver in my desire to have her hand in marriage. As such, I will be staying here until she gives her consent." Emilio continued his explanation after they had settled back down in the living room.

"Wait a minute! I'm a man! I never agreed to this!" Ranma shot up, turning to Emilio. "Didn't you say you would grant my every wish? Then turn me back!"

"I refuse!" Emilio's short fuse was lit. He raised his hand before clicking it, once. A large explosion could be heard from the distance. A few moments later the ground began to shake and windows began to rattle as the aftershock came. Nearby car alarms started blaring.

"That was from a nearby building that was slated for demolition. Next time I won't be so lenient." Emilio's eyes were as hard as steel as he stared into Ranma's. "Let me make one thing clear, I only returned you here because it was your wish to do so. However, do not be so arrogant as to think you can order me to overturn my decision! I do not plan to turn you back into a man. I will not cave in to that!"

"Please excuse me!" Nodoka was able to get out before she left in a hurry. Ranma cast a hateful glare at Emilio before chasing after her mother. Emilio sighed before turning to examine the other parent, who looked to be in deep thought.

Deep in Genma's mind, rarely used gears gave a few lurches before starting to spin rapidly, sensing a great opportunity before him. He quickly did a few estimates of the prince's worth given what he had seen so far. Signs of yen appeared in his eyes. Such a rich person was interested in his son… no, daughter? Give him what he wants and he will be set for life! Protocols long since beaten down by his wife came back online in his mind as it was filled with views of endless food and booze.

Emilio mentally shook his head in exasperation as Genma's face changed from one of intense concentration into a look that he only knew too well, greed.

"It is traditional for the groom to offer some compensation to the family of the bride, just how much would you be willing to offer?" Genma tried to look disinterested.

Emilio grinned as this was some of the sort of people he knew how to deal with. He summoned his personal servant who entered the room carrying a large suitcase. Genma's eyes widened almost impossibly, as it was opened showing the contents to be stacks of large denomination bills.

"My Lord had me run ahead to change some of our minor assets to the local currency," Alfred explained, but Genma was mesmerized by the case full of green paper in front of him.

"After the wedding goes through, an account will be opened for you containing the contents of several more suitcases like this." Emilio smirked evilly.

'There must be hundreds of millions contained in this one alone' Genma did a quick estimate in his mind. '…and there will be more?!'

"Sold!" Genma moved to grab the case, but it was pulled out of his reach and two pieces of paper and a pen was placed in front of him.

"If you'll just sign here…and here…" Alfred gave him an innocent looking smile while pointing at certain places on the papers. Genma quickly did so as instructed without even looking at the contents. He grabbed the case before running off in laughter. Alfred and Emilio sweated as they watched his retreating back. 'Is that sort of person really related to Ranma?'

Not knowing what was currently occurring back in the living room, Ranma worryingly chased after her mother. She managed to catch up to her before she closed the door to the room she and Genma shared.

"Please, mother…I need you hear your thoughts on this." It was good that her efforts to teach her son how to speak more formally hasn't gone to waste, Nodoka inwardly smiled before her thoughts turned to more serious matters.

"Truth is…I'm conflicted about this." She admitted. Nodoka made a show of giving a big sigh before heading to look for something in her dresser.

"Sometimes I wonder…had I not found you and your father those years ago, that I would have gone mad in the solitude of this house and held you to this." She returned to the side of her son-turned-daughter and handed her a yellowing piece of paper.

"What…this…? No way! Seppuku?!" Ranma exclaimed, glancing at the contents. It stated that her father and she would return as man amongst men else they commit ritual suicide. Followed by her father's sloppy signature and what seemed to be handprints of a child all over the paper. "You're not serious!"

"I was young…and foolish back then. Had Genma come to me with this and not left in the middle of the night, I probably would have accepted." Nodoka admitted, ashamed at the look of horror that appeared on her child. "It was during the four years that I moved across Japan chasing after you two that opened my eyes to how idiotic some of my ideals had been."

"I don't know why I kept this, perhaps as a reminder of my foolishness." She nodded at the piece of paper in Ranma's hand. "However, please understand that I will never hold you to this now."

"No matter what your decision is, a mother will always love her child." Ranma looked at her mother in surprise, her horror slowly turning into relief. The two smiled at each other for a while until Nodoka noticed the time, commenting that she had to start preparations for dinner. Before she left, Ranma moved to return the contract, but her mother stopped her.

"Keep it; it's yours to do as you wish." Not knowing what to do with it yet, she shoved it into her pockets and noted to herself to find a safe place to keep it. She followed her mother out of the room and was ambushed by her father. Genma grabbed her and spun around with her while singing congratulations. It took a while for Ranma to regain her bearings after Genma jumped away holding a suitcase, at a speed one wouldn't expect from a man of his bulk.

"What has your foolish father done now…" Nodoka sighed as she steadied a dizzy Ranma.

Mother and daughter headed back to the living room to see Emilio still seated at the small Japanese table. Alfred had long since disappeared with a copy of the contract to who knows where and left no signs of his presence here apart from the paper still sitting in front of the prince. Both women moved to examine it.

"What's this?! A betrothal contract?!" they exclaimed. "…and it's signed by Genma Saotome!"

"What's this about!" Ranma grabbed the prince by his shirt. "When did this happen?!"

"Your father had just given me his consent to wed his daughter. This piece of paper is merely an official statement of that." Emilio stated.

"I knew I shouldn't have left the two of you alone!" Ranma began to rant before her mother dragged her aside.

"Ranma, I know you're against this, but it's still a legal contract." Nodoka whispered to her. "It'll reflect badly on our family's honor if it's broken from our side."

Ranma gritted her teeth in anger before grudgingly accepting the fact. "Alright! Fine! But don't think I'll be marrying you any time soon! I'll find a way to turn back into a man, with or without your help."

"Hmph! You can try." The two were about to start bickering again when Nodoka took another look at the clock.

"Oh my! It's this late already! I can't believe I completely forgot about your little sister! She'll be coming back soon."

"What! Little Akari?! I can't believe I didn't think of her even once!" Ranma exclaimed.

"She was completely depressed when you disappeared, so I had to send her to one of her friend's house to let her take her mind off things." Nodoka explained to Ranma

"You have a little sister?" Emilio commented.

"Yeah, she's about six now and in her first year of elementary school. She was born a year after my pops and I was dragged home." Emilio raised an eyebrow in curiosity but their attention were then drawn by Nodoka who commented on how she punished Genma for those years of negligence then blushed red and went off in la-la-land as she recalled just how she ended up venting those "frustrations", all four years worth of them. Emilio sweated as Nodoka became air-headed and Ranma plugged her ears trying not to listen. It was obvious just how Akari "came to be".

The scene was interrupted by the sound of the front doors closing and a small voice announcing their return. They all froze as small thuds of footsteps neared the living room before revealing a small redheaded girl with her hair cut just above her shoulders, though the twin buns tied at both sides of her head suggested that it was much longer than that. Her purplish blue eyes swept around the room for a while before Ranma unfroze and rushed to hug her.

"Akari-chan!" She wasn't even able to gasp in surprise before the taller redhead girl came and hugged the daylights out of her.

"Ano…who are you?" The little girl was finally able to ask when she was let down.

Both Ranma and her mother were at loss for words as to explain the situation to the youngest Saotome member, but Emilio had no such compulsions.

"This is your brother, Ranma. I turned him into a girl so that I can marry her because I fell in love at first sight." Emilio deadpanned as he gave an extremely abridged version of events.

As if that made sense, were the doubts in Ranma and Nodoka's minds. Akari looked down as if in deep thought. They looked in worry as the girl started trembling. Then they were surprised as she shot up, looking as if she had sparkles shooting out of her eyes.

"You mean my big brother is my big sister now!" She asked excitedly. Struck dumb by her reaction, Ranma could only nod.

"Yay! Big sister!" Ranma was tackled by her little sister and hugged her as she snuggled into her chest.

"B-but don't you think it's strange for your brother to be a girl?" Ranma asked. She felt the little girl shake her head in negative before she looked up from below.

"No…I really like big brother because you always come to find me and makes me feel safe," she explained, before muttering something that Ranma almost couldn't make out. "Even though he always forgets about me like everybody else and I have to wait alone for a long time before he comes…."

"But big brother is a boy...and there are some things that a girl can't do with a boy! So having a big sister like Ranma is the best of both worlds! Now we can do everything together!" She spoke in a logic that would probably make sense only to a child. Nearby, Nodoka tried to hold in her laughter but almost failed, so she excused herself to go prepare dinner. Ranma was a bit depressed at how her manhood was so easily dismissed by her sister, but also felt relief at how accepting she was. In the end she decided to put those distressing thoughts behind as she patted her little sister on the head, who purred in contentment.

Dinner was a simple affair. Nodoka didn't have much time to prepare so she had to make do with some hand-made gyoza that she had prepared beforehand. You could see the prince's eyes widen in surprise as he tasted the unfamiliar food. Praising the Saotome matriarch for it, Nodoka blushed in embarrassment while commenting on how a gentleman he was. Ranma grumbled as how it was all a façade.

"I've been wondering? Who is he?" Akari asked as she gulped down another dumpling, pointing at Emilio.

"I'm Emilio, a prince from another planet." Emilio responded.

"I'm also your sister's fiancé." He added before Ranma bashed him. Akari's eyes went sparkling again as she considered the situation.

"So a prince came out of the sky and fell in love with my big sister…" She pumped her arms in excitement as her mind embellished what she was told. "Ranma's going to become a princess and live happily ever after! It's just like a fairy tale!"

Ranma was taken aback by her sister's intense gaze. She was relieved when she turned that gaze to Emilio.

"Can I become a princess, too?" She fidgeted in her seat in anticipation. Emilio smiled gently before responding.

"Of course, after your sister and I get married, her family will become a part of Royalty. So you will be a perfect little princess." He moved over to the other side of the table and took her hand, raising it to his lips as if to kiss it. Ranma got up and dragged him off to the side before whispering furiously in his ear.

"Stop putting ideas in my little sister's head!" They looked back to the table where Nodoka was trying to pacify the little girl who looked as if she would jump out of her seat in excitement. "Anyway, I'll warn you! If you dare do anything to harm her, or the rest of my family then I'll….I'll hate you for the rest of my life!"

Ranma threatened before returning to the table, faltering at the end when she suddenly recalled the power that the prince had at his fingertips. Unknown to her, her weak attempt at intimidation did have the intended effect as the prince felt like something stabbed through his heart at the thought. Placing a pleasant smile on his face, Emilio followed his intended back, where they were pelted by questions of how they met by the overly energetic girl. Though they had a feeling that whatever answer they gave, it was twisted around in her mind until it fit in the fantasy world that she was beginning to build up.

* * *

Later that night, Ranma was finally able to relax as she basked in the familiarity of her room. Lying on the bed, she was suddenly reminded of the piece of paper in her pocket. She looked at it for a while but still couldn't think of anything to do with it. Deciding to be done with it, she just ripped it to pieces and threw them into the trash bin before moving on to more important things. She quickly discarded the feminine garments before searching through the dresser for something to wear for bed. Unfortunately most of her old clothing hung loosely on her and the pants would fall off if they weren't supported by a belt. She dug deep in the drawers until she found a set of pajamas that she never wore as she felt the pattern was too girly. It came with drawstrings so she would be able to tie them off. She cursed her luck and began to put back all the clothing she had thrown about during her search. There was a knock on her door before Nodoka entered, followed by her sister.

"Oh my," Nodoka stopped in surprise at the state of the room before her eyes centered on the figure of her former son clad in female undergarments. "So the change is that complete."

"No! Wait, that idiot's maids forced me into this. I was just looking for something to change into after the baths." Ranma hurriedly explained, waving her hands as if to ward off the strange looks that Nodoka was sending her.

"Well, I was just coming to tell you that the furo's ready." Nodoka smiled, putting the matter out of her mind. "Though I was wondering what we're going to do about sleeping arrangements. There are no more rooms after your sister was born and the guest room downstairs had long since been converted to a storage room."

"Though the two of you are engaged, it is not proper for you to sleep together." She added with a sly look.

"That idiot can just go sleep in the dojo!" Ranma suggested, while denying any possibility that she would even think of doing something like that with him; she was referring to the extension that had been built after their next door neighbor sold their house to them some years ago. For some reason they were in a hurry to move, luckily Nodoka had quite a bit saved up and went through the plans to make sure that Ranma had a place to practice their family legacy.

"My, my… that's no way to treat a guest…" Nodoka admonished. She laid her cheek on her hand as she tried to think of a solution. Before Ranma could retort however, Akari piped in.

"I know! Big sister can sleep in my room!" She stood on the balls of her feet in anticipation, raising her hand like she was answering a question in the classroom.

"Why, that's a wonderful suggestion Akkarin~" The girl scratched the back of her head in embarrassment at the praise from her mother. "Now, didn't you want to ask Ranma something?"

"Oh yeah, I was wondering if big sister wanted to take a bath with me?" Akari asked, suddenly shy. After Ranma gave her hesitant consent, Nodoka sent her off to her room to prepare her bath supplies. Before leaving, she turned back to her eldest child with a look, a smile on her face.

"What is it?" Ranma asked curiously.

"Oh, it's nothing." Nodoka waved it off. "You just remind me of myself at your age."

Ranma looked down to herself before starting a mental comparison, her hair was a much brighter red when compared to her mother's auburn locks. Though she usually had it up in a bun, she knew that the hair would reach down her back. All in all, she gave the elegant grace of a refined lady.

"I had so many admirers back then." She chuckled before turning to tease Ranma. "You better be careful or you'll have to beat the boys off with a stick."

"I'm a man!" Ranma stomped off, bathing supplies in hand, leaving Nodoka to chuckle to herself.

Ranma sighed as she upended a bucket of water to wash away the suds. Her sister called to her for help so she took a soapy piece of sponge to wash her back. Declaring that they were done, she told her to close her eyes before pouring water to clean away the bubbles. Settling down into the furo, the two girls relaxed as the soaked in the warm water.

"It's been a while since we've done this, haven't we?" When Akari was younger, Ranma would be asked to take care of her when Nodoka was too busy to help. It was natural for siblings to help each other and Akari was too young to think there was anything wrong in bathing together. As she got older however, one day she just returned from school horrified and refused ever since. Eventually they managed to return to a 'skin-contact' stage.

"I remember, big brother's body is too hard to hug but big sister's is soft and great for cuddling!" Akari snuggled into her sister as she declared that. The movement jostled something that Ranma would rather not think about as she was trying not to look too carefully at her own body. It would be the first time that she's truly seen her body in the nude as the other times she was distracted by the maids changing her clothes. Her thoughts were quickly interrupted by the sensation of hands lifting her breast. Startled, she let out a rather girly scream while moving away.

"Do you think I would grow up to be like big sister?" Unaffected by her reaction, Akari continued with the question that was on her mind.

"How the he-… erm, I mean… I wouldn't really know." Ranma stopped herself in front of her impressionable sister. "It's really too early for you to be thinking about that."

Ranma tried very hard not to think about her sister growing up, developing curves in all the right places, and having hordes of boys chase after her. She gripped her fist in anger as she imagined those grabby hands going all over her little sister's body.

'I'll just have to beat them all off to the death.' Not knowing of the dark thoughts going on in the mind of her elder sister, Akari smiled before moving closer again to cuddle. A knock on the door came and Nodoka's voice carried in from the changing room. She reminded them that it was a school day tomorrow, so it was better if they didn't stay up too late. The two rose from the furo and removed the excess water using towels. They both dressed in relative silence.

Ranma had to take out a new pair of boxers since the elastic would still be tight enough for it to not fall off. She put on the pajamas that she had found earlier and moved over to help Akari dry her hair. As she moved the hair-dryer over her sister's head she found her mind wandering.

'That's right…what am I going to do about school?' She pondered. 'The guys are probably going to laugh at me. Maybe if I went in a disguise they won't find out?'

Deluding herself into a plan, she was brought out of her thoughts when her sister took the dryer out of her hands and stepped on top of a stool. She smiled at her before moving over to let her dry her hair.

The next morning Ranma woke up with Akari snuggled at her side. She shook herself awake before taking a look at the bedside clock. It was already too late for her to get her morning spar in and if she didn't hurry they will be late for school. Idly she wondered why her father hadn't come to wake her up for a morning spar as she rushed down the stairs with her sister in her arms, who was just blinking away the sleepiness. She arrived at the living room and could only stare in shock at it was already overcrowded.

There was a veritable feast on the table. Nodoka could only blush as she was served a fine meal and her every need was tended to. Genma lay at the side being ignored. He nursed a terrible hangover as he fell in and out of sleep, it was just desserts. Akari was taken away from Ranma's unresisting arms and they were both surrounded by maids as they began to replace their clothing and brushing down their hair.

"What's going on here?" Ranma fought her way out of the crowd towards Emilio, who was drinking some tea while looking out at the yard.

"As your fiancé, I intend to provide you with a standard of living that is more befitting of one of your station." He merely stated.

"The house is crowded enough as it is! Why didn't you tell him off? Mom?" She turned to look at her mother.

"W-well…I could get used to living like this." Nodoka dabbed a napkin at the side of her mouth, turning to the side and refusing to meet her daughter in the eyes. Ranma sent a look of betrayal at her. She quickly regained her composure. "No, I mean…this is just too much. Why, it is even getting difficult to move around. Perhaps with only one or two around…"

"Just send them back! Now!" Ranma interrupted. Emilio nodded at the maids who curtsied before they filed out of the room. Nodoka looked at their departure with a slight disappointment.

"Can't you just stop trying to mess with my life?" Ranma knelt down at the low table. Sensing someone near her, Akari leaned over as she nodded off, now dressed in a child sized gown. Ranma rightened her before moving over to take a bite out of the spread on the table. Her eyes widened as the taste simply exploded in her mouth.

'This…this is really good,' she admitted to herself.

Genma was finally woken by the aroma. The living room quickly degenerated into a battleground. Emilio could only watch with his brows twitching as father and daughter fought over pieces of food. Luckily Nodoka managed to defuse the situation before the prince blew up.

"Genma! Didn't I already tell you to stop that training at the table? Think of the example you're setting for your youngest!" Nodoka berated. Genma backed down in shame. It had been a while since he had gotten so drunk. Since he still wasn't thinking clearly after waking he followed long ingrained habit when encountering delicious food.

Ranma also looked ashamed, she thought herself as better than her father but some habits are just hard to break. The prince's next words served to bring her out of her depressing thoughts rather quickly.

"Yes Ranma. It's unbefitting of my future queen to behave in such a matter."

"I never said I was going to become your queen!" This started another round of bickering.

* * *

Ranma grumbled to herself as she searched for her spare uniform inside her room, now serving as the guest room. It was just infuriating how the prince thought everything would go his way. He did everything he pleased with no regard of the people around him. Now she was even going to be forced to give up her room for him! Her mother mentioned how they were going to move her stuff into her sister's room when they were at school.

"What are you doing?" The voice of the prince came.

"What does it look like? I'm getting ready for school."

"I forbid you to go! There is no need for you to attend such a plebian institute." Emilio stated, suddenly turning around as an improbable scenario came to mind. "Unless…there is a boy that interests you?!"

"I'm a guy!" Ranma protested. "I can do whatever I wish! If I want to go to school then I'll go! You're not going to stop me!"

"Let me remind you that this world has absolutely no value to me. If you decide to stay here instead of marrying me then I'll simply make this world…." Emilio trailed off as Ranma curled up on herself and started sniffing. She turned her face to him, showing tears that threatened to drop.

"Well…I…err…please don't cry." He was taken aback by Ranma's sudden breakdown. He didn't know how to react as this was too different from how she usually acted. He grabbed his hair in frustration before giving in. "Fine, do as you wish."

After the prince left she rubbed the tears out of her eyes. She let go of the onion she had taken from the kitchen earlier. Grabbing her uniform, she congratulated herself on the completion of a hastily thought plan. She had guessed from his interaction with her little sister but she was really surprised that he was really a big softy at heart.

'To think he would fall for something like that, I guess he wasn't as cold hearted as he looked.' Ranma thought as she struggled to close the last few top buttons on her shirt. "Argh, these things are such a pain."

She searched her drawer for some medical bandage and bound her chest up as tight as she could. It hurt a bit having them pressed up like that and it also interfered with her breathing, but now she could close up the top even as it hung on her rather loosely. She tied her hair in a loose ponytail as she didn't have time to braid it into her usual pigtail.

"Alright! I think I can pass as a guy." Her confidence was misguided however. From a distance the deception would be possible due to the uniform she was wearing. Close up there would be no mistaking the feminine features. Grabbing the school bag she went out the front door, announcing her departure. Up on the roof of a nearby apartment, the prince watched as she left.

"How are the preparations?" He nodded to his servant, who stepped out from behind a ventilation shaft.

"I've already met with the leaders of this country. Legalities have been taken care of." Alfred informed his liege.

* * *

There were no complications on her way to school, and she made it with time to spare. Changing into the indoor shoes, she moved into her homeroom and quickly sat down on her seat. She drew some curious stares as she entered and it wasn't long before someone came to talk to her.

"Hey, are you new here? I'm sorry but this seat is already taken." It was one of her classmates, named Sakai if she remembered right.

"What are you talking about? This is my seat!"

"Hah, you may think it's funny to come to school dressed in a boy's uniform, but there's no way I'd mistake Saotome for a girl." Sakai pointed out. It was horrifying for her to be found out so soon, she was still thinking of a response when he continued. "Come to think of it, you look pretty similar to him. Are you a relative? Did he put you up to this?"

His questioning was put to a halt when the bell rang and the homeroom teacher came in. Students rapidly returned to their seats, the teacher took a look around before making an announcement.

"I know it's sudden after the forced break we had, but starting today we'll have a transfer student." Eyes in the classroom immediately turned to look at her. The teacher stared at her as well for a while before suddenly remembering something. "Ah yes, we also have to reintroduce someone. Ranma, please come up here as well."

The class immediately went into an uproar. It took a while for the teacher to calm them down, placating them with promises of explanation. Ranma fidgeted on stage as everyone's stares were concentrated on her. She had never felt so self conscious in her life! She cursed the prince again in her mind. The teacher called out for someone to enter, and her eyes widened as she saw just who came in from the open door.

"This is Emilio Ordlock; he just transferred in today from abroad." Ranma had to hold back her anger as she didn't want to make another scene. However, fate seemed to have other plans as the teacher continued. "Why don't we let him introduce himself?"

"I am Emilio Ordlock, fiancé to Ranma Saotome." Chaos erupted again, everybody was speaking but nobody seemed to listen to her as Ranma tried to explain herself. This time it took the teacher almost losing his temper and taking out a megaphone to shout for the class to quiet down. Nearby classes gathered to see what the commotion was about but the crowd quickly dispersed when the teacher walked outside. He readjusted his tie before returning to the classroom.

"Well, let's see…during the break Ranma here went abroad where he was involved in an incident with Ordlock-kun." The teacher began with an explanation, reading out of a paper that had been prepared for him. There was an emergency meeting this morning for all the teachers where they were met with government figures in black suits. The teachers were all intimidated into complying. Who would think that the young man standing right there was the ruler of an alien superpower? He sweated as he continued with the back story.

"…as a result he was heavily injured and his…err…manly parts were damaged beyond repair. The two of them met again during the rehabilitation where they fell in love and became engaged. Ordlock-kun paid for the operations."

There were a lot of holes in this story such as how she managed to heal that quickly over the course of the one or two weeks they have been on break, but none of that mattered to Ranma. She gave the teacher a smile that reminded him of an oni before excusing for the two of them and dragging Emilio outside.

"E…mi...lio!" Anger overcame all reason as she confronted the prince in the stairwell near the classroom. She punctuated each syllable as she called out his name in order to reign in her impulse to murder. "What the hell was that about?!"

"It's pretty good, if I must say so myself." The prince grinned with certain arrogance, not a concern at all for the inferno that was threatening to erupt in his face.

"What!"

"Since it was your wish to attend, I had Alfred come up with a suitable background to make your transition easier, as there are bound to be questions to how you are now of a female gender." He handed over her new school identification. It was mostly the same as her old one except that this one had her current appearance on and the gender was ticked female. She looked at it in shock as she never recalled standing still to take that photo. Lifting her head to look at the prince, his face was smiling but his eyes were taunting her. "I simply couldn't leave my future wife alone to fend off the wolves so I decided to come here as well."

She pushed him up against the wall, trying to hold back the rage. Her fist opened and closed before tightening in agitation. She let out a cry of frustration and let loose, her punch hitting the wall at the side of Emilio head, cracking it slightly. Who knows what else could have happened had she continued but at that moment they were interrupted by a cough. They both turned to see the homeroom teacher standing nearby.

"Excuse me. I would prefer if the two of you did whatever it is that you're doing in your own time. Homeroom is almost over and the first class is about to start." He informed them.

Suddenly aware of their close distance and how it may appear to outsiders, Ranma immediately jumped away from the prince. It was hard to say whether her face was flushed in anger or embarrassment but as she turned to follow the teacher she gave him a look that promised future retribution.

* * *

Break time was naturally chaotic, though by the end of the first class Ranma had calmed down enough to be merely irritable. The homeroom teacher had made the unwise decision of seating Ranma and Emilio together, so a crowd rapidly gathered at the center of what promised to be the hottest topic at school.

"Ranma, how could you give up your manhood like that!" The male martial artists in class gathered. "Weren't we brothers in arms as we honed our friendship through sweat and blood!"

"I'm still a man no matter how I may look!" She proved that she still had her strength by sending them flying, and turned to look in the direction of Emilio.

The prince was surrounded by girls as they were drawn by his natural charisma. They fawned over him as they asked questions but he skillfully deflected them or gave them some nonsensical answer. It seems that rumors travel fast in this school as more and more people appeared during the next few breaks, by lunch time it was becoming unmanageable. People were beginning to block the classroom so they had to escape to the cafeteria. However, this only made things worse as it could accommodate many more.

"Ranma! How could you betray us like that! We thought you liked girls!" Ranma watched in confusion as a group of girls came up to her, each crying as they bit on their handkerchief. They each bore an armlet that proclaimed membership of the Ranma fan club. A girl wearing glasses fought her way through the group and took up her hand. The glint made it hard to see her eyes.

"Ranma-sama, it pains me to give you up but when faced with this situation, I have no choice…for there is no greater bond on earth than that of love!" Ranma shook her hand out of the strange girl's grasp. "I will forever be a supporter of the Emilio x Ranma ship!"

She removed her armlet before placing another on. Her declaration drew cries of "traitor" and "betrayer" from the group, but soon it could be seen that there were those of similar sentiments as almost half the party changed colors and they began to clash amongst themselves.

"But wait! I think the reverse shipping works as well!" A voice suddenly broke through. The fighting paused as the girls considered the suggestion.

"What!" "No! That's blasphemy!" Another color change rippled through the group and it soon degraded into a three-way cat fight. Ranma decided to ignore them all and soon escaped from the area again. Busy fighting each other, they never noticed her leave. Lunch soon finished after that.

Nearing the end of the day, Ranma was mentally exhausted. She was not used to dealing with so many people since she mostly concentrated on practicing her art. She knew people admired her for her skills and that there were those who were jealous of her for it, but she rarely interacted with people outside the realm of martial arts. Some of the girls in class have even taken to calling her a martial arts otaku behind her back. She turned to look at the prince and silently cursed as he seemed to thrive in this situation. The class president took the time to announce that the next class would be gym. Since they would be practicing judo they should take the time to change and gather before the bell rang. Sighing, Ranma rose to her feet and began to unbutton her uniform shirt. Emilio stepped in front of her.

"What are you doing?" She looked up to see the irritated face of the prince.

"What does it look like? I'm getting changed."

"In front of all these males?" She looked around and saw that all of her male classmates had their gaze fixed on where she was opening the next button.

"Why does it matter! I'm a guy! It isn't strange for a guy to change in front of other guys!" Some of her classmates nodded in agreement, but it was obvious that their motives were impure.

"If those lowborn males dare lay their eyes upon your naked flesh, then I…" Emilio shuddered as he tried to imagine the situation. Lighting was beginning to course through his arms. Fearful for her classmate's lives, Ranma sighed before she grabbed her bag.

"Fine! I'll go change in the bathroom! Does that satisfy you? Your Highness?!" She stormed out of the classroom, bag in hand. Some of her classmates groaned in disappointment, but quickly returned to changing their clothes when Emilio glared at them.

The class soon gathered at the gym where the class was separated into boy and girl teams, they were all dressed in their gi. Some of the girls pointed out that as a girl, Ranma should go with them, to which she disagreed with. The teacher waved it off as well.

"Don't worry about it! Ranma is the most skilled in this class! I'm sure that even as a girl she can take them all on and win!" he laughed heartily. Ranma was his prized student and he was confident of her skills. In fact before she was changed into a girl, she served as the class assistant for martial arts classes. The girls sweat-dropped at his response since this was not what the girl had meant. The teacher shooed them off to their part of the class before he turned to address another problem.

"You there! Ordlock! Why haven't you gotten changed!" Though all the teachers were informed of the situation and ordered to secrecy about it, the gym teacher was clearly made of something else if he could speak to him in such a manner.

"Teach, he's from abroad so he probably doesn't know how to wear one." A helpful student piped in.

"Right! I completely forgot about that!" Or perhaps he was merely a simpleton, Emilio thought. "Okay then! Ranma, go help him get changed!"

"What! Why do I have to help that idiot!" Ranma protested but still dragged him off to the changing room. She threw him a new pair of gi. "Just put them on and I'll show you how to tie them."

"I'm warning you, martial arts are important to me so don't you dare mess it up for me." She threatened Emilio as she tied off the pants before showing how to make the knot for the top part.

"I understand, this is simulated training for close quarters combat." He analyzed from his standpoint as a general. "Since the people of your kind are unable to make use of mana, you need to rely on techniques like these to maximize the use of your physical strength."

"Err…right." It felt as he was insulting her art somehow, but he was able to get the gist of it. Now finished, she led them both back out to the gym where the mats have been set up.

"Now! Since we have a transfer student today, why don't we go back to the basics?" The teacher announced when the two returned.

"Teach! Why don't we have sparring practice today!" The males seem overly eager today. Most of them followed her as she walked up to stand beside the teacher as the assistant. She could almost feel their gazes concentrating over her chest.

"Doesn't her chest seem bigger to you?" "No way! Those are huge!" Some of them could be heard whispering. Ranma gripped her hands in annoyance. She had loosened her chest wrap since they felt constricting and she didn't want it to mess up her breathing for practice. She never expected to draw this much attention. The teacher announced that they would be sparring today instead. Immediately, all the boys came up to her, wanting to partner up.

'There is only one way to confirm it!' This was the thought on their minds.

"I will be substituting Ranma." Emilio announced, putting himself between them.

"Fine…I will take this one, the rest of you can partner with Ranma if you wish." Sakai was at the head of the group; he offered this in response.

"I'm afraid you misheard me. I meant that I will be taking on all of you." Ranma almost charged in to stop this nonsense, but the teacher stopped her by grabbing her belt.

"Just let them work it out! It's been a while since I've seen the entire class with such passion." The teacher laughed. "Besides, those are the words of a challenge."

A challenge, it is an offer of match between two martial artists. Part of her style decreed that she must accept all challenges. Therefore it would be hypocritical for her if she interfered now.

The prince had challenged them all at once, but they still thought he was an amateur, so they decided to go one after one. The first one up was Tanaka, a black belt from the Judo club. Since he was the one with the most training in Judo after Ranma, he would be the best to judge his strength.

He ran forward as the teacher announced the start of the match. Grabbing Emilio by the top, he turned to try and throw him. No matter how much strength he applied, he wouldn't budge. Something strange was going on here.

"Guys, come after him all at once!" He called out in warning. The rest of the boys charged forward, each grabbing a part of his body, trying to pull him down. But he stood still as stone.

"Is that all you got?" Emilio spoke before he made his move. Those on top of him were sent flying. Another wave came at him before they met the same result. It was as if they were watching the sea crash into a cliff.

Ranma looked in deep concentration as she switched gears into an analytical mindset. The way they were unable to move him was unnatural, she noted. There was not enough purchase on the ground yet they weren't even able to lift him. She tuned into her other senses. With the resource available at home she was able to delve more into the spiritual side of martial arts training. Currently she was able to sense the chi around and use the ki internally for some self augmentation such as speeding up her healing, but one day she hoped to be able to do as legends told and project it.

Something tugged at her senses as the prince sent another wave flying. It wasn't ki or chi, but something else. Unfortunately she wasn't able to find out more about it as the boys were already all lying on the ground, exhausted. The girls had long since abandoned their own practice and grouped together at the side, watching with interest. Emilio dusted himself off before heading towards Ranma, an arrogant look on his face. She was about to issue a challenge of her own when the side wall of the gym burst open.

"Ranma Saotome! How dare you disappear like that! Because of you I've seen hell! Prepare to die!" A man jumped through the hole on the wall. Emilio was about to interfere but Ranma sent him a glare that clearly meant for him to butt out. Confused, he looked around to see that their classmates were already moving out of the way and treated this as if it were a daily occurrence. From their comments he gathered that the man's name was Ryoga Hibiki, and that he was a rival of Ranma.

"Hah! You're not fooling anyone with that disguise. I know it's you underneath whatever you're using, Ranma!" Ryoga taunted as he charged forward with his combat umbrella. "To think you'd stoop as low as pretending to be a girl."

"What the hell are you talking about?! You know what, just shut up and fight!" Hibiki logic was just as convoluted as their sense of direction. If you tried to follow them, you'd get lost.

It was an epic martial arts showdown, but due to its regularity everyone mostly ignored them. The girls still followed them from time to time, mainly since it provided some sort of "eye candy". This time however it garnered some attention because they were interested in how Ranma's new appearance would affect her.

As they fought the difference was made much clearer. Ranma was much more agile and she was able to weave in and out of Ryoga's straightforward attacks much easier. However when she countered it was obvious that her hits were at a lower power since he merely shrugged them off. She cursed as she was reminded of her encounter with that opponent in the alien forest. She had thought that she figured out the limitations of her body but it seems that she still hasn't gotten to know its capabilities.

Deciding to buy herself some time, she employed her true and tried method of baiting him. Using her superior speed, she pushed, tripped and made him overextend himself as he began falling down all over the place.

"You know, Ryoga, I never took you for the clumsy type."

"Shut up!"

"You need to work on your balance some more!"

As the two moved around the mats, Ryoga's swings became even wilder due to his anger. His ire increased at each miss, and soon he could think of nothing more than of beating Ranma into a pulp. Ranma laughed as she led Ryoga around, it was a tactic that has worked well into the past, but also dangerous. He became obsessed to the point that he noticed nothing else. Surely it made him wear himself out faster, but it was also harmful to the surroundings and especially innocent bystanders. She carefully led him around the gym until their chase turned them back onto the mats. Ryoga took a powerful downward swing and Ranma took a simple step back to get out of its way. Unfortunately she never noticed that a puddle of sweat had collected in one of the impressions where one of her classmate had fallen. She slipped on it and fell back. The umbrella got caught on her top and the bandages that became loose due to her excessive movements. It tore through them on its way down, exposing what lay underneath.

The whole room gasped as her 'assets' were laid bare. Ryoga looked down in surprise at her uncovered chest, suddenly mesmerized. His eyes widened even more as they moved around when Ranma tried to get up. Raising her body up by the arms, Ranma looked around in confusion at the cries when Ryoga didn't take advantage and follow through on his attack. The girls were staring at her in shock and some in pity whereas the boys were all giving her strange looks while breathing rather heavily. She turned back to look at Ryoga just as his eyes rolled up in his head and he fell backwards due to the geyser of blood splurting out of his nose. She felt a light draft as wind caressed her front and finally she looked down to see the state of her dress. Suddenly reminded of what the prince had told her earlier in the classroom, she quickly searched through the crowd for him. It was a short search as classmates were already backing away from him, lightning coursed through his body as he tried not to lose his temper.

This fight didn't last long.

The gym promptly exploded.

* * *

The rest of the school was a mess as they tried to deal with the aftermath of the destruction of the school gym. Luckily no one was hurt too badly as the prince did retain some semblance of control and let loose in the direction where there were no students located. The most they had to deal with were scratches from the shrapnel and a few people went temporarily blind due to the intense illumination. Naturally Ranma was pissed off at the prince for involving innocent people.

"You idiot! How could you blow up the gym like that!" Ranma shouted at Emilio as they stood in the relative emptiness of the school infirmary. Those who had been harmed had already gone home after getting treatment as their injuries were light. However that left Ryoga as he had fainted and still hadn't woken up. "Someone could have died! Don't you care for human lives at all?"

"I already did my best to minimize casualties. No one was seriously hurt." He argued.

"That's not the point!"

"Hmph. Very well, I shall endeavor to make reparations." He paused after moments of thought. "But most importantly, just what is that man's relation to you?"

He pointed at Ryoga who was laid out on the bed. Ranma bristled at the question. "Why would you care?"

"Was he the true reason why you wanted to come here? Perhaps you were romantically involved with him?"

"Let me remind you that I've always been a man! He is a rival I've had since Junior High." She took a few breaths to calm herself down. "Though we're also best friends, you could say he's the closest thing I have to a brother."

The prince seemed somewhat mollified by her answer, but still looked between the two of them with suspicion. However any more explanations were put on hold as Ryoga returned to the land of the living.

'What was I doing?' Ryoga wondered as he slowly sat up. His body ached in many places and he had a splitting migraine that reminded him of the time he kept turning into blood donation centers. He would turn incoherent at the sight of the cute nurses and couldn't really refuse them as he signed the donation forms. Later on he became some sort of legend in donation centers as there was no way anyone could appear in so many centers within hours of each other, but that was a story for another time.

"Hey, you're finally awake." He turned his head up to see the redheaded girl that he had been fighting and some foreigner standing behind her. His face flushed as he was reminded of the state that he last saw her in. Blood rushed into his head and he began to feel faint once again. "Whoa! Steady! You should know better than to get up that quickly. You did lose a lot of blood you know."

"I'm extremely sorry, miss!" He exclaimed once he was able to get the dizziness under control. At her look of confusion, he continued. "I mistook you for someone and attacked you! He's a friend of mine and that's how we always greet each other…"

"Wait! What are you talking about! You don't recognize me?" Ranma interrupted, pointing at herself. "I'm Ranma!"

A look of incredulity came on Ryoga's face. Ranma huffed at his reaction. "Just use that technique you have to always track me down somehow!"

A few years ago Ryoga had stumbled on a blind hermit living in a monastery during one of his 'trips'. He had run out of food and was almost starving to death so Ryoga shared some of his supplies with him. In exchange the hermit taught him a technique to sense auras. He brushed it off as useless in the beginning before something was pointed out to him. By anchoring that sense to a certain person it ensured that he would always be able to find them. It wasn't perfect but at least it narrowed him down to getting lost in a certain area. But there was also another problem since he needed to concentrate to use it, Ranma's aura was ideal as it stood out to his senses, thus cutting down on the time he needed to center himself for the technique.

Ryoga closed his eyes as he looked inwards to find his center. In the last few weeks he had gotten lost because Ranma's aura had suddenly disappeared. Going around in a panic, he found himself trekking through snow, forests, and even deserts until he finally arrived back in Tokyo somehow. He expected the search to be long since he hadn't found it even once during his trip, but to his surprise it immediately appeared in his senses. Though there were some minor differences there was no mistaking it. Ranma was standing right in front of him.

"No! How can it be? That's impossible!" Ranma sighed as she began another recounting of the past few weeks.

The story seemed to be too farfetched to believe, but there was no denying what his own senses were telling him. For whatever reason, Ranma was now a girl.

"You don't need to worry though; I can still beat your ass no matter what body I'm in!" Ranma piped in.

"Hah! You wish!" Ryoga gave a smirk back. At that moment, a teacher entered the infirmary to inform Ranma and Emilio that they were needed at a meeting. Ranma gave Ryoga a nod before exiting the room with the prince, leaving him to his thoughts.

It was after that challenge back in Junior High that Ryoga finally realized that the reason he cared so much about Ranma was because he considered him a friend. It surprised him when he mentioned this to Ranma later on, that the other boy felt that they were friends long before that. He felt alone most of his life as his parents weren't around much, and since he inherited their bad sense of direction he never had much opportunities to make friends, and he always felt that the kids at school made fun of him behind his back. Finally having a friend to rely on started a new chapter on his life. Following Ranma allowed him to attend school more often, and eventually he was able to make even more friends. It took him a while to realize that the ribbing between the guys was just a way to show their affection and that they had no ill intentions behind it.

Though he was able to expand his circle of friends, it was Ranma who he was closest to due to their mutual interests in martial arts, and how they were able to improve themselves with their self proclaimed rivalry. Now that Ranma was a girl, he wondered how their relationship would change. He tried to imagine the two of them doing thing they have done in the past, only now his mind replaced Ranma's body with his current one.

He thought of how usually after a spar they would relax and chat about things as their bodies recovered, sometimes Ranma would have a drink with him which he would share. Then Ranma would lead him back to either of their home if his parents haven't found their way home yet..

'Wait a minute, with Ranma becoming a girl, doesn't those things look like we're going out on a d-date?!' He flushed as he started seeing those scenes in a different light. '…and we usually take a bath together after that to save time….'

Blood threatened to fall again as his imagination ran wild with views of a nude female Ranma, helped by the "preview" he had of her assets. Grabbing the metal post nearby, he beat himself on it to try and draw those thoughts out of his mind, only to have it bend and eventually break in half. At that moment, Ranma came back from the meeting.

"Hey I'm back~" Ranma announced.

"I'm sorry Ranma, I've betrayed our friendship!" Ryoga cried and grabbed his pack, which had been laid at the side of the bed. He charged out of the infirmary, completely ignoring the wall as he broke through it and heading away from Ranma.

"What was that about?" Emilio commented as he followed in, staring at a newly made man-shaped hole in the wall opposite the door. Ranma could only sweat-drop as she had no response to that.

The walk back home was spent in relative silence as her mind was occupied by a lot of things. Her body was on automatic as she took a step after another. Eventually they arrived at their destination. Announcing their return, they quickly met a response as Nodoka stuck her head out of the kitchen.

"Welcome back! Oh, hold on a minute…" Nodoka called out. After making sure that the pots won't boil over she walked over to the living room and knelt down where Ranma had sat herself. "The school called over and told me what happened. Are you alright?"

"Yeah, nobody was injured seriously." Ranma waved off her concerns.

"…they've also mentioned that…they've officially acknowledged you as a girl." Her daughter's expression turned sour. Nodoka sighed at her reaction and tried to placate her. "I know that you don't like it, but rules are rules. If you break them without consideration they might even expel you."

"Maybe if we tried to get an exemption…?" She turned to look at the prince. But the arrogant look on his face soon dashed the hope that was blossoming on her daughter's face.

"Hey! Whatever happened to granting my wishes?" Ranma complained.

"Hmph, I will not have my future spouse in such unflattering clothes." Emilio stated. This of course, sparked another round of bickering. Nodoka rubbed her head to soothe the incoming headache at what was rapidly becoming a common occurrence. She straightened herself as an idea soon came to mind.

"Ranma!" Her daughter turned away from Emilio at her call. She walked over and gently grabbed her hands before continuing. "There are some things in life that we just can't change, maybe it's just bad karma, but whatever it is we must not dwell on it."

Seeing that she was about to complain, Nodoka placed a finger on her lips. "Ranma, what is one of the most important aspects of the Anything Goes Style?"

"Adaptation…" Ranma recited.

"That's right; you adapt, and move on. Then maybe come back once you've found a solution." Ranma still didn't look happy with it, but accepted her logic. Nodoka gave her a motherly smile before another subject came to mind.

"Now, we have already finished moving your things." Genma had always tried to keep Ranma's attention on training so he didn't have much interest on material things. Therefore they were able to clear out the room and move them within the day. "However most of your clothing probably won't fit anymore so we will have to buy you a new wardrobe along with the uniform…."

Nodoka sighed as she mentally calculated the effects this would have on the month's budget. Emilio took this as a perfect moment to interject.

"Ranma shall have finest garments this world has to offer. I've already converted some of my assets to the local currency. Money's no object."

"My, my… How gentlemanly of you to offer. Now that's one problem off of my mind." Nodoka quickly ushered Ranma upstairs before she could object. "Now… Ranma, dinner will be ready soon. So why don't you go wake up your sister from her afternoon nap?"

The meal was eaten in relative peace. Akari got excited quickly when it was mentioned that they were going on a shopping trip the next day. The two sisters went to bed that night with completely different expectations. One was almost bubbling over with excitement, while the other looked at it with trepidation.

The morning came too soon for a particular member of the Saotome household. Ranma groaned as she got out of bed, taking care not to wake up the little girl that had snuck into her covers sometime in the night. She stretched as she looked around the room that she now shared with her sister. Though she would have been fine sleeping in a futon on the ground, for some reason their mother preferred western beds despite the way she always dressed. They had taken the single bed and replaced it with a two story one. Where they had managed to scrounge up a completely new bed was anyone's guess, but Ranma had a pretty good idea just where it could have come from as she examined the expensive looking adornments that lined the bedsides.

She changed into a gi as she prepared for her morning workouts. Her father won't be joining her for a spar this morning since he had a late night shift as a security guard. Sighing again, she began her rounds and eventually relaxed into the well practiced forms of the Anything Goes Style katas. Claps of applause drew her out of concentration and she turned to see the prince leaning against the sliding doors of the dojo.

"Such grace, as expected from my future spouse." Ranma decided to let that one go as he was complimenting her and she didn't want to ruin her current mood by starting another argument with him.

"Was there anything you wanted?" A hint of annoyance still seeped into her voice.

"I was wondering the purpose for this side building, when I saw you enter. Now I see that it serves as a place for your combat training."

Ranma was silent as she examined him, though her mind was elsewhere as his words reminded her of the events before the explosive end of the gym class the day before.

"What was it that you did in that spar yesterday?" Sensing her interest on him for once, Emilio decided to indulge her.

"So you noticed?" He smirked.

"There was this strange energy whenever they tried to move you, and also a burst when you blew them away."

In a glee that she had paid that much attention to him, the prince explained. "What you sensed was my use of Mana, or magic as you will."

"I'm sure that Alfred has already explained to you how our technology revolves around Mana." At her nod, he continued. "There are many uses for it for me to go into one by one, but we don't just use it for combat, it's our way of life."

At her curious glance, he decided to elaborate. "Many of our appliances are developed through the use of Mana, and some are even powered by them. The amount of Mana one can use varies from person to person, and may be determined by factors such as natural talent and the effort they put into developing it."

"Do you think I might be able to learn how to use it?" Emilio himself seemed actually intrigued by this question, though Ranma was interested in it mainly as a new technique, and hoped to be able to counter it at least. His answer rapidly dashed that hope.

"I doubt it. The chances for the residents of a borderland world having any aptitude for magic are close to nil. It's actually one of the reasons why we classify them as such."

Though disappointed, she put it behind her then turned to something that she had wanted to do since yesterday. To see how she fared against the prince. Excited at the prospect, she grabbed Emilio's hand and dragged him to the middle of the dojo.

"Well? Come on! I want to see how I do against it!" Ranma got into a Judo stance, figuring he would be more familiar with it after yesterday.

"Eh…well, that is… I don't want to hurt you." He blurted out.

"I can take it!" Ranma's cheerful face gradually changed into one of annoyance. "…or maybe you're insinuating that I'm weak?"

The frown on her face actually gave the prince a sense of foreboding. It would not end well for him if he gave the wrong answer.

"Nonono! Absolutely not!" He waved it off; she gave him a look of suspicion but decided to let it go. Mimicking her stance, he sighed before concentrating on using the spell at its lowest setting. He was surprised when he was grabbed by the shirt and knocked off balance.

"What the hell was that?! I didn't feel a thing!" Ranma growled at him. "That was pathetic! Stop fooling around or you'll get hurt!"

Wincing at her tone and the slight injury to his ego, he decided to nip this in the bud. He returned to the center where he stood to face her, turning up the spell to its full power. This time, when Ranma charged at him he barely moved an inch. Gritting her teeth, she pushed at him with all her might, to no avail. She upped her strength until she maxed out her natural limit and entered the zone of ki-based enhancement. To her glee, she could feel him shifting.

Emilio was surprised when he started feeling something corrode at his spell, disrupting it. As his body started being pushed back he reacted in instinct and shoved, sending Ranma flying.

'No!' He tried to push down his reaction but was too late. To his amazement and relief, she was able to right herself in midair and landed back on her feet. Further sparring was stopped by Nodoka's announcement that breakfast was ready. Ranma quickly sprinted out of the dojo, leaving the prince following slowly behind, frowning as he contemplated what had just happened.

* * *

Ranma sighed as she was reluctantly dragged by her little sister, who was skipping as she imagined all the things they'll be doing on this shopping trip today. Following them were Nodoka and Emilio, whom has graciously decided to take care of the payment. It was his fault anyway, Ranma had muttered after convincing herself.

The first thing on their agenda today was the matter of school supplies. Though many of her stuff can still be used, there are certain materials that must be replaced due to her change into the female gender. In particular, uniforms. Even now she had to make do with some clothing that had shrunken in the wash and hadn't been thrown out yet, and it was quite uncomfortable having to wear shoes that didn't fit as they would flop around at each step. Luckily they had specialty stores for standard school supplies. They would be able to get full sets of clothing as well as footwear there, which will solve her current wardrobe problem nicely before they address the problem of filling it elsewhere.

They entered an inconspicuous shop in an alley near the local train station, an ideal location due its closeness to a transport hubbub yet cheaper in rent since it was out of the crowded areas. It was not as if they had a need to attract window shoppers. A sign outside listed the schools it provided service for. Amongst which, of course, was the one Ranma attended. The attendant, a mid aged woman appearing to be in her late fifties, carefully inspected Ranma's school id before leading them to a dressing area and started digging through boxes.

"It's rare for someone to need a replacement uniform in the middle of the term. Though guessing from your clothing you were probably involved in some sort of accident. Now that I think of it, didn't the school collapse a few weeks ago? I also hear that the school gym was destroyed yesterday. Oh you poor dear…Honestly what are schools today coming to…" The woman rambled on and on as she searched through the stacked boxes. "Ah, here they are…Heimei High School girl uniforms. Now, what are your sizes?"

Ranma looked at her in curiosity before her mother whispered to her what the woman meant. She stuttered as she tried to think of a way to explain this, it would be quite strange for a person her age to not know their own measurements. Before she could say anything though, the prince stepped forward. She stared at him in shock when he recited a set of numbers from memory. The attendant gave the two of them a knowing look and moved to retrieve the specified items.

"Here you go. Now I know that some girls are self conscious about their bodies but from what I've seen you really have nothing to worry about. It was also really considerate of your boyfriend to be able to remember them." She chuckled, mistaking the sudden redness on Ranma's face for embarrassment. "Now, why don't you go try them on and we can show them off for him?"

The increasingly irritating woman placed a few packets of unopened clothing in her arms before pushing her into the stall. Must not kill innocent people just because they're annoying, Ranma repeated in her mind as she opened the bags. Looking at the articles of feminine clothing, she sighed heavily before moving to put them on. There was really no use in postponing it.

"Though who knew that those days taking care of her sister would come in handy like this." She muttered as she recalled all the times Akari was left in her care when their mother was busy trying to clean up after that idiotic father of her. Since Nodoka rarely bought slacks for her daughter, most of what her little sister had were mostly skirts and dresses, so she had much practice during those early days when she couldn't dress herself.

"I wonder why these are so short…" She zipped up the navy blue pleated skirt at the side before moving to struggle with the red tie. It was somewhat ironic that the necktie, a more commonly male clothing accessory would be part of the female uniform and not the male one. Giving up on it, she left it hanging around her neck and turned outside to face the music.

"You look quite beautiful." Nodoka commented with a smile as she showed her how to properly tie the long piece of cloth around her neck. Ranma could only look away from her mother, mixed between embarrassment at being complimented and annoyance at it being towards her appearance as a girl. The attendant handed her a pair of long socks that reached just underneath her knees, then returned later with a pair of leather shoes around her size.

"Big sister looks so pretty!" Akari claimed cheerfully as she bounced around Ranma, inspecting the uniform at different angles. The prince also gave his compliments but the smug look he had made her want to rip that smile off his face.

"How do you feel in them? Do they fit well?" Ranma moved around a bit, testing her range of movement. The short skirt moved around freely and didn't restrict her legs. The flowing of the clothing was something that needed to get used to but it wasn't really that different from the hakama that Nodoka sometimes had Ranma wear during festivals. It wasn't a good idea to start a kata in this confined space so instead Ranma began a series of stretches that ended with her in a split, unaware of the effects it would have on her audience and one person in particular.

"Ranma!" She looked confused as her mother admonished her. The attendant made her-self scarce and went to another part of the store while muttering something about being young and how she wished she was that flexible during her youth. "I know this was something that you were forced into, but you really need to think about outer appearances!"

"Akari looks up to you. And as the eldest you need to set the proper examples!" Nodoka gestured at the younger Saotome child who was watching with great interest. Ranma herself was horrified at the thought of her cute little sister acting like a man, therefore had no choice but to concede to her mother's point. Satisfied that her child understood where she was coming from. Nodoka calmed herself with a few breaths before calling out to the attendant for the rest of the supplies.

There were other articles such as the gym clothes and the summer version of the uniform, which was the same except that the shirt had short sleeves and the skirt was made of a lighter material. Since they've confirmed that the sizes fit there was no more need to try them on one by one. Ranma moved back to the changing stall to remove the uniform but Nodoka stopped her and turned to the attendant.

"If it's alright with you, I'd like for my daughter to walk out wearing the uniform."

"Of course, it's no problem at all. I'm sure that no girl would want to wear such ill fitting clothes if they didn't have to." The attendant smiled back and collected the items to be rung up as well as the clothing Ranma had left in the stall to be bagged together.

"What! Mom, I don't want to wear these girly clothes." Ranma complained but the stern glare and the subtle nod towards Akari stopped her and reminded her of what her mother had said.

"You will need time to get used to them. What better way than to wear them as we replace your wardrobe today?" Though Nodoka's tone was gentle, her eyes showed them to be steel and that there was no room for argument. Grumbling and unable to voice her protests out loud, Ranma stomped her way outside, her sister following behind her.

The local mall was a big congregation of different stores that ranged from clothing to even household appliances. It wasn't a place that the Saotomes frequented but given the time they had allocated for this shopping trip it seemed like a logical conclusion since they'd be able to get the majority of it done in a single place. The group was now lead by Nodoka as she dragged a reluctant Ranma while a still cheerful Akari skipped beside her. They were followed by Emilio who lagged behind loaded by all the bags.

'I'm the crown prince of a kingdom spanning hundreds of worlds, and ruler of Ordlit. Yet why am I here reduced to this…" The prince thought as he struggled with the packages. While he used magic to lighten the load, even his Mana was taking a toll due to his prolonged use of it. Initially he had thought it to be beneath him, but Nodoka's innocent comment on how the women of this world preferred for their men to be gentlemen soon had him all but glad to take them; a decision that he was starting to regret.

'That woman…' He stared at the back of the Saotome matriarch. 'Was this what she had planned? If so, then she's more dangerous than I imagined.'

"Now, why don't we let the prince rest here for a while?" Nodoka's voice startled him out of his thoughts. His eyes refocused on the girls to see them standing near an unoccupied bench. He sighed in relief as he set down and slumped into the seat, too tired to care for appearance for now.

"While he is resting, there's a bit of shopping that is awkward for there to be a male present." She winked at him and subtly nodded at the shop behind him. He followed her gaze to see that it was a lingerie shop. His faced turned red as he began to imagine Ranma in pieces of provocative underwear, and progressively risqué undergarments. He had to stop else he passed out from all the blood rushing to his face.

"I suppose your input could be appreciated, but I think I'll just take the girls with me while you rested." Ranma complained at being included in the girls comment of course, but it was beginning to appear as if it was a token objection. Nodoka gave him a parting smile as she pushed the struggling Ranma inside the store.

Now inside, Ranma had to look down since almost everywhere in her glance were rows of female undergarments of many different varieties and colors. Nodoka had to grab her head and turn it towards her to get her attention.

"Ranma, listen to me. There's no need to be embarrassed. It's only underwear."

"What?" She could only answer dumbly.

"You understand that a male's body structure is different from that of a female's. There are different areas that need…support so to say."

"Now, the females in our family have always been rather…healthy in that aspect, so it's important that you do so as to not get injured since you're very active."

Her mother's explanation made sense to her martial arts mentality, but it was still a hard pill to swallow. Swallowing her doubts and indignation, she agreed but with a few conditions.

"Alright, but I'm not going to wear anything frilly or girly!"

During the walk back home Ranma was much more subdued, but most of that was probably because of the fact that Nodoka had once again convinced her to get used to her purchase by wearing it home. The shop attendant had helped them pick out several pairs of underwear that were designed with athletes in mind once she heard she was a martial artist, and the panties were similar to briefs in appearance that she was able to convince herself to not to think about what they really were.

The sound of something dropping dragged her out of her mind and she looked behind to see Emilio struggling to pick up a bag that had fallen out of the multitude that he still held in both his hands. Wincing at the situation that she had inadvertently put the prince into since she had been trying to ignore him, she rushed to help him.

"Geez, you don't need to do everything yourself! If you need help, just call out! Idiot! " She grabbed the bag and held out a hand, gesturing for him to hand her some more. A few steps away, the other two members of their little group stopped to watch the spectacle.

He glared at her for a bit at her comment but relented, letting her take almost half the amount of bags away. "Whoa, this is heavy. How much did we buy anyway? How are we going to fit all of this inside my room?"

"If it worries you that much, there's plenty of space for it in the room I set aside for you in my castle." They continued walking. "In fact I can call for them right now to take care of it."

Emilio suddenly stopped as he finally realized that fact, using his free hand to slap himself lightly on the forehead, he said, "Why didn't I think of that earlier?!"

"Idiot," Ranma could only answer.

* * *

Author's Notes:

Here we go! The rewrite for Chaos at the End of the World has finally begun.

I took the ideas and experiences from writing that fic and it culminated into this. It took me almost over a week to write this and is the longest chapter I've written to date.

Also I feel that there were many backgrounds that were left unsaid so I decided to flesh them out a bit. Hopefully I was able to do them in a way that could merge into the story and not look like I'm bombarding the readers with facts. I'm sure that though Ranma has a steady fan base, Sekai no Hate de Aimashou probably doesn't have as much people knowing about it. So maybe the characters would need to be introduced more.

The butler/advisor guy is a recurring side character but I couldn't find a single instance where his name was mentioned, so I decided to give him the name of Alfred, picked from a list of notable anime/comic butlers.

Though the major events are still similar, it can be seen that changes have been made. For one, Ranma is more aggressively against the change instead of just meekly accepting it. I look forward to how his/her relationship will develop with the prince, and maybe find out things about themselves that they never knew before.

I would also like to take the time to thank Vahn, who was a great help during the formation of this chapter. It was a pleasure discussing ideas and I hope to be able to continue working together in the future.

As usual, I would like to hear your feedback. Please review and try to avoid flames as they would serve no purpose.

Thanks for reading!

2014/5/18 Chapter Finished

2014/6/17 Minor Edits

2014/6/21 Small Scene Edits

2014/7/4 Fleshing out details.

* * *

Bonus:

Since this took a bit of time to write there were ideas and scenes that I had wanted to put in but were later discarded. Or maybe they were twists to the scenes that I thought would be funny. Anyway there were three of these written, so I've decided to include them as omakes for your enjoyment.

Omake #1 Ranma Strikes Back

_(from the scene where Ryoga wakes up in the infirmary)_

"No, I _am_ Ranma!"

"No. No! That's not true! That's _impossible!_" Ryoga cried out in shock.

"Search your feelings; you know it to be true!" Ranma stared at him, her smile twisting up into an evil grin. Ryoga turned to his senses, looking for that familiar presence that served as a beacon for him to turn to when he was lost. It was there! Right in front of him!

"No. NOOOOO!" He shouted, Ranma's cruel cackle followed him as he let go of his consciousness and fell down into the darkness.

Omake #2  
_(discarded scene where Emilio decides to buy Ranma expensive clothes)_

"These rags aren't fit to touch the fair skin of my soon-to-be wife." Emilio declared as he examined the clothing on display, ignoring the cries of outrage from the shop attendants and Ranma.

"You there!" He pointed at a nearby security guard. "Lead us to your fines purveyors of female garments."

The guard was confused but since giving directions to shoppers was part of his job, he complied. Soon they were led to an area of the mall that the Saotomes haven't visited before because it was way out of their usual price range.

To the shop manager's well trained eye, the three women coming behind the man that just came in were beneath his notice. Though they were all beauties in their own way, the make of their clothing ruled them out as potential customers. The eldest amongst them, probably their mother judging from their similarity to her, was dressed in a kimono of a fine material. However there were too much wear and tear on it and showed it to have been worn many times in the past and hadn't been maintained with a proper care, possibly a family heirloom that has been passed down after the family was driven into poverty.

Now the man, he had a regal air around him and his clothing was clearly of a vastly superior material. Stitches on it showed them to be hand-made but were done in a way that showed its excellent craftsmanship. He gestured at the attendant at the side to back down. This was one customer that he'll have to greet himself.

"Greetings, what business brings you to our fine establishment?" He headed directly towards the man, placing a pleasant smile on his face.

Omake #3 Nodoka's true plans?  
_(What if there were some other reasons behind her support of Ranma? lol)_

_(continued from the lingerie shop scene)_

Nodoka smiled inwardly as she watched Ranma turning to check out some of the plainer bras and panties on display, cheering at the success of her plan. It took some convincing and heavy persuasion for her son turned daughter to accept wearing female underwear as a necessity. To use her former son's moments of weaknesses to bring her to her way of thinking, some may even call it brainwashing. But hey, whatever means to an end, right?

'That'll show you, stupid Genma. I'll have my revenge by stripping your dream away from you!' She grinned evilly as she imagined the look he'll have on his face when he discovered his legacy crumbling before him.

The main reason they had a tried for boy in the first place was for Genma's sake. Nodoka had wanted a girl but her husband was rather insistent. In the end she acquiesced and Genma had his way, but to ensure his heir was born he had her go under various strenuous methods that left her all but barren after their child's birth.

The doctors had all said that her chances of getting pregnant again were near zero, so she gave up her dream of having a girl and decided to love Ranma with all her heart.

'Then he had the gall to pull that stunt with the seppuku contract!' Her hands tightened at the memory of waking the next morning to find her-self alone with only that piece of paper serving as a clue to where they had gone.

Akari's birth had been a pleasant surprise and helped fill some of the hole in her heart, but she always had a bit of regret that her firstborn wasn't everything that she wanted. Though disappointed, Ranma will always hold a special place in her heart.

'But now, the gods seem to have granted me a miracle.' She turned to look at Ranma who was being dragged by Akari to see some of the "cute ones" she had found.

'I have never understood where Genma's obsession with having sons came from.' Nodoka thought as she watched Ranma patting her younger sister on the head, the view turning flowery in her mind as both smiled.

'Daughters are just much cuter!'


	2. Chapter 2

Disclaimer: I do not own the rights to Ranma 1/2 and Sekai no Hate de Aimashou. Both works belong to their respective authors. This writing was made purely as fan work and no profit is to be made from it.

Pre-chapter Author's note: A bit of a warning though, this chapter will be a bit depressing at parts.

* * *

The birds chirped energetically as the sun peeked over the horizon; over at the Saotome household the residents gradually woke as they started to prepare for a new day. Ranma curled up into herself to fight from being woken up, but the cute moans coming from whatever she was snuggling up to immediately had her mind on alert. Sitting up in alarm, she let out a sigh as she released her struggling sister, who immediately relaxed against the bedding. It seems that her little sister had snuck into her bed again and they nuzzled up against each other during the night. When Ranma hugged her against her body, she inadvertently planted her little sister's face into her impressive chest and almost suffocated her. Taking care not to wake up Akari, Ranma climbed down the stairs to prepare for her morning workouts. Passing by the full length mirror, she sighed again as she looked at what she was wearing.

"It's only clothing." Her mother had reminded when she pressed the garment into her hands as she was preparing for bed. Though her mother sure had strange ideas when it came to female sleepwear, Ranma decided. With the way her mother would normally dress in traditional kimonos one would never imagine she would prefer western style bed clothing. She had looked in horror as her mother laid the plain white nightie against her in front of the mirror, but her little sister was all for it since it looked good on her. In the end she caved since she didn't want to disappoint them. At least there weren't any lace on it; she tried to convince herself that it was fine as she dug out her gi from the dresser. As she dressed, she wondered if she imagined the mischievous smile on her mother's face as she left their room.

Trying to turn to less depressing thoughts, an evil grin appeared on her face as she recalled that her father was in today. Normally he would have been up before her to kick her out of the bed, but due to her going missing in the last few weeks it figures that the lazy glutton had gotten used to sleeping in. Now it was a perfect time for her revenge. Sneaking up to her parent's bedroom, she peeked in the door to make sure that her mother had already left the room before tip-toeing inside. Taking care to suppress her intent, she took in a deep breath before jump-kicking Genma out of his futon.

"How long do you still intend on keep on sleeping pops!" She roared as Genma was hit straight on the head, immediately shocked awake. He scrambled for his glasses, still dazed from the attack. "Oh woe is me for having such a useless pop!"

It felt good to turn the tables back for once, but she didn't have much time to gloat as Genma rapidly regained his bearings. Downstairs in the kitchen Nodoka could only sigh at their antics as the sounds of their chase passed through the house before heading towards the dojo.

"Let's see how much you've slacked off these past few weeks! I bet you had people waiting on hand and foot the entire time. Maybe I should take it easy on you, princess?" Genma took a jab at Ranma's current situation.

"Hah! You wish! And who're you calling a princess!"

The two of them rushed at each other and soon they were trading blows in mid air. Though the training trip was interrupted, Genma still took Ranma's training seriously, and imparted his martial arts knowledge whenever he was allowed to. He didn't show it, but he was also proud of the way his son had delved into the spiritual arts using the scrolls he had at his disposal. It was something he always lacked in, and he would say he had no need for such sissy arts when asked. But his son had taken the initiative to improve himself when he was under such restrictions for physical training, which was what anything goes was all about.

Genma had a hard time at first, since he wasn't expecting there to be such a difference in agility. Her frame was also shorter than her original form, therefore presented a smaller target. He had hoped that Ranma would still be unused to her feminine form, but it seemed that she didn't spend the last few days fooling around. It wasn't long before he was knocked down on the ground.

"Come on pops! Is that all you got? Maybe you're getting fat and lazy in your old age!" Ranma taunted.

Instead of speaking, Genma replied by going on the offensive. The duo returned to the air as they traded blows. This time however, they seemed more evenly matched. The two dropped down on the ground and separated, taking the time to regain their breath and analyze their opponent for weaknesses. As they prepared for the final strike, a call came from the kitchen to inform them that breakfast would be ready soon. With the tension released, they both returned to the center of the dojo and bowed, signaling the end of the spar.

"It was a good spar, but it'll be many years before you can beat me!" Genma boasted as he walked behind Ranma.

"Hah! As if! I could have taken you hands down!" Ranma retorted, but as she approached the doors she was suddenly grabbed from behind then thrown onto her back. She was knocked silly from the impact, and when she looked back towards the exit she could see the smirking face of her father as he turned to walk out of the dojo.

"You let your guard down, Ranma! I'll be taking the bath first, girl!" Genma laughed heartily, walking away from the dojo.

"Who are you calling a girl!" Ranma slowly got up from the floor when her dizzy spell passed, then returned to her room to prepare for her bath.

Her little sister seemed to have gotten up already, and was probably in the living room watching the morning cartoons. Ranma looked around the room for a while then she headed towards the dresser. She dug through the drawers for her usual underwear before she recalled that her mother had already taken them all away and that she was to wear the "proper" undergarments while she was in female form.

'She did threaten to disown me if I ever continued wearing them after I manage to regain my male form.' Ranma shivered as she recalled the sharp blade of the Saotome honor sword pressing against her as her mother said that. Sighing again, she took out what was to be her 'usual' underwear from now on and began to search for something to wear after cleaning up. To her horror, there was nothing but skirts in the drawers and all the slacks and trousers they had bought were nowhere to be seen. Slamming the closet door open was no better as everything they contained were dresses.

"Mom! Where are all the pants we bought yesterday?" She asked after rushing down into the kitchen.

"Oh my, they aren't in your room?"

"I've already checked."

"Maybe the bags got mixed up." After Emilio called for his maids to take away all the bags, he also told them to help put them away. The clothing must have gotten unsorted in the process of passing them and left Ranma with most of the things she didn't want to wear. "Now, now…breakfast is almost ready and I'm sure your father is already done with his bath. Why don't you get cleaned up and I'll pick something for you to wear?"

Ranma warily agreed then left to pick up her bathing supplies. The prince had already left citing some emergency meeting and without him there they had no way to summon a gate. Since it was nearly time to eat she decided to take a quick soak. Idly she noticed the sound of her father calling out and the front door closing, but she paid them no mind. It wasn't strange for Genma to leave home early. He's changed jobs so many times in the last few years and usually began at different periods. A knock at the door of the bathing area told her that Nodoka had arrived with her clothing and she quickly got out of the bath. She groaned when she saw what was laid out. Nodoka had picked out a blue blouse as well as a black skirt. Clothing in hand, she rushed out of the bathroom to confront her mother.

"Mom! What in the world is this?!"

"Why, I thought it would look lovely on you." Nodoka looked up from where she was placing the dishes then frowned at the state of dress she was in. "Now Ranma, it might have been fine for you to go around the house in your underwear when you were a boy, but as a girl it is totally unacceptable!"

Akari had finished with her television and was just getting seated at the low table. "Look at the example you're setting for your little sister! Now put on those clothes at once!"

"But mom…." Any further protests were halted by a single glance from her mother, so she had no choice but to go back to the changing room to put the clothes on as well as dry her hair. She went back to the table dressed in the skirt and picked on her breakfast sullenly. They were almost finished when Nodoka suddenly remembered something.

"Oh my, I forgot to pick up some groceries when we were out yesterday. Ranma, would you be a dear and take your sister to school while I go out for them?" Akari was pretty excited at the prospect, and was all for showing off her "new big sister" to her friends.

"I don't want to go out on these girly clothes. Maybe if I changed into my spare gi…"

"Ranma! The clothes you have on are perfectly normal for an outing. To go out wearing a gi is simply not acceptable. There is a time and place for everything!" Nodoka objected, and any other plans to change outfits were shot down quickly. They helped clear the table then headed out once Akari had gotten changed. The little girl skipped merrily alongside Ranma who dragged herself along, depressed. It wasn't long before they arrived at the nearby elementary school.

"Akkar~~in" A blonde blur suddenly shot towards them, Ranma rapidly moved the both of them out of the way. After the dust settled they looked to see a long haired girl laid out on the ground. Another girl with dark hair tied into a ponytail followed behind to check on her.

"Ah! Kyoko-chan, Yui-chan! Good morning!" Akari greeted out.

"Who are you?!" The blonde girl, Kyoko, jumped up from the ground, pointing at Ranma.

"This is my big sister! Ranma! These are my friends, Kyoko and Yui!" Akari pointed at the blonde and the black haired girls respectively. "They're in a class above mine though, but they are my best friends!"

"Wait, but I thought you had a big brother?" Yui pointed out. Akari quickly ran through the events of the past few days, though the dark haired girl was still skeptical. Kyoko however, seemed to take it at face value, and turned towards Ranma with sparkles in her eyes.

"Magic! So it really exists!" The look on the blonde girl's face was beginning to scare Ranma. Luckily the bell rang at that point and the three elementary schoolers had to rush into the building after hastily waving goodbye.

Putting the strange girl out of her mind, Ranma turned to walk away from the school. Nobody really paid her any mind as she went down on the streets, and she gradually became less self conscious. Though there were a few guys who gave her a second glance before moving on. Eventually she decided she might as well meet up with her mother in the shopping district since there wouldn't be anyone home anyway.

In the end, she never found her mother as they hadn't planned to rendezvous in the first place. It was an interesting experience to be outside by herself in a time when most people of her age would be at school. A couple of officers stopped to talk to her but let her go once they heard what school she was from. As lunch time neared stands began to be set up along the street and eventually she was drawn by a scent.

"Welcome! Would you like to have some of our famous meat buns?" The vendor gave his sales pitch at her approach. Her stomach seemed to have been woken by the aroma of the food, and she decided to have a snack before heading home. However, when she reached for her wallet she recalled that she had to leave it behind since the skirt didn't have a pocket.

"I'm sorry, looks like I forgot my wallet." She gave the steaming buns a longing look, but there was nothing she could do since she didn't have any money. It's probably for the best and her mother would have gone home by now, she pouted.

"Well, I can't have a cute girl go hungry. Here, have one on the house!" She turned her eyes away from the food to look at the vendor in surprise. He held out a packed bun towards her, his face was slightly flushed and his eyes were a bit dazed but he still had a brilliant smile on his face.

"Wow! Really! Thank you very much!" The smile on her face was like the sun suddenly peeking out after a long overcast day. The vendor was slightly overcome by its brilliance.

"You know, maybe after my shift is done we can…" Whatever he meant to say was ignored as Ranma thanked him for his gift then left. After finishing the food and throwing away the trash, she finally had time to think about the situation now that her mind wasn't occupied by the hunger.

'That guy sure was nice, food vendors usually tell you to scram when they find out you don't have money.' Ranma recalled all the times she and her father were kicked out in the past, but there was still something nagging at her. 'He was acting a bit weird though…'

'Huh? Wait a minute!' The answer quickly came once she saw her own reflection on a shop window. If she had no idea that this was her own face, she would have been overcome with a need to comfort this upset girl. 'That doesn't only work on Emilio? I know that as a guy we tend to take it easy on the girls but this…'

Since Ranma has been concentrating on martial arts all his life, he really didn't pay much thought on the opposite sex. Also his mother tended to put emphasis on chivalry so he always believed that the reason the other guys did some things was because they were being gentlemen about it. He never thought that they would have some ulterior motives. Even now that Ranma became a girl she would probably think that guys were just suckers for cute girls.

'Maybe I can test it out...' A nearby drink stand quickly became her next target.

The street vendor was still minding his own business when he noticed the approach of a possible customer. As he rose up to greet the girl he was suddenly struck dumb by her beauty. Red hair was a rarity on a Japanese face, and a busty chest would have looked slightly out of sorts on such a short stature. But her confident gait along with the lean body somehow made it work, and work extremely well.

'Ehh…I…Ahem! How may I help you?" The vendor managed to get out. Ranma made a show of taking her pick before finally deciding, she could feel the guy's eyes on her every move. The man scrambled to fulfill her order before putting out his hand for the payment. Ranma acted as if she were looking for her wallet then became surprised and later frantic when she didn't find it. She schooled her features into a dejected look before turning towards the vendor, trembling her lower lips like how she'd seen her little sister do when trying to get something she wanted. All in all, it was an overly dramatic act. But somehow the vendor was eating it all up.

"It's on the house!" At that declaration, Ranma knew she'd won. She hid an evil grin as she walked away from the stand with her spoils of war, slurping on it contently as she considered further uses for this "technique". This body wasn't really that bad now that she thinks of it. Imagine all the free food she could get!

Stand owners everywhere suddenly shivered in fear.

* * *

The night was a time for people to rest after a weary day, to unwind and let the worries of their daily life go away. It was no difference for a balding martial artist that doubled as many other things, sometimes he would be a security guard, other times a janitor, and rarely would he be hired as a martial arts instructor. Today however, was a good day, he was finally allowed back into his favorite bar.

"Oh, if it isn't Genma Saotome?" A long haired man with a mustache noticed him after he sat down.

"Eh, Soun! Soun Tendo! Old pal!" Genma greeted the man heartily. The two were old time training partners, and had forged a friendship over the many hardships they endured under a man they dare not mention anymore.

"How are you doing?! Last I heard from you, you were taking your son on a ten year training trip, wasn't it?" Genma sweated at that and began to think about how to explain things without offending his old pal. Truth was that after his wife caught up with him and dragged him home by his ears, he was so busy trying to regain her favor and training his son that he completely forgot to get in contact with him again.

"Eh heh, well… you see…" Luckily the man has been here for a while and was already a bit inebriated. He was able to brush him off. They traded stories for a while and by then both have already had many bottles to drink.

"Say Genma, your son is already sixteen isn't he? Don't you think it's about time for the children to meet?" Soun slurred as he downed yet another glass. Genma began sweating again and laughed nervously. Though intoxicated by the alcohol, Soun was still somehow able to see his unease and immediately pressed on him due to past experiences. It was never something good when Genma was skittish.

"Genma Saotome, you still remember about our pact, right?" He grabbed the man by his dirty white gi.

"Yeah, yeah, of course. We pledged to join our schools didn't we?" He managed to wave off his worries, though the mustached man still hadn't let him go.

"Then why are you so nervous?" Soun continued questioning, and suddenly remembered something. "Come to think of it, the last time I saw you here, you were getting kicked out because of the massive tab you've run up. The owner specifically stated that you wouldn't be allowed back in unless you paid up. It was a lot of money if I recall…."

The sudden spike of anger did the work of quickly burning out the alcohol. "Genma Saotome, did you do anything to endanger our pact?"

"NO! Of course not!" Genma frantically waved. Though slightly skeptical, Soun decided to trust his friend once again.

"Well then! You won't have any problem taking him to meet my daughters in a few days time, won't you?" The balding man nodded so fast, that the cloth covering his head almost fell off. "Then it's settled! Let's take a few more rounds to celebrate!"

The two martial artists drank away both their worries, laughing earnestly as they bonded over past shenanigans. Eventually they had to part ways, with promises to meet up again in a few days time. It was quite late by the time Genma arrived at home, and as he opened the doors a feeling of dread suddenly came over him.

What greeted him was the beautiful visage of his wife. However his attention was currently focused on the unsheathed blade currently held in her hand as she walked out of the living room.

"N-Nodoka! I can explain…" He slurred, the effects of alcohol evaporating quickly as survival instincts kicked into gear.

"I can understand you going for a few drinks after work to unwind, but I also recall telling you specifically that you were to tell me in advance if you weren't going to be home for dinner…" The sharp end of the katana turned to be thrust before his face. "Have you any idea what time it is now?!"

"Erm…well, you see… I came across an old friend! Soun Tendo! You remember him, right?" He stuttered as he struggled to find a suitable explanation to placate his irate wife. The frown on her face lessened as one of her eyebrows raised in response, but the sword remained pointed at his head. "My old training partner! It's been years since we've contacted each other. We spent the time catching up and I guess neither of us noticed how late it was getting!"

The frown on her face deepened once again. Surely it wasn't that big of an infraction compared to all the idiotic things he had done in the past? He thought as he prepared to unleash one of his last ditch efforts, one of the Saotome School Secret Techniques, the dreaded "Crouch of the Wild Tiger". To his relief, it proved to be unnecessary as his stoic wife removed the blade from his face.

"Very well, I understand how time can fly when meeting an old friend. I'll give you a pass this time." Her eyes turned steely. "However, do not let this happen again."

Genma finally let out the breath he didn't know he had been holding in as Nodoka returned the Honor Blade to its stand atop the small shrine honoring their ancestors. He gulped nervously as he was suddenly reminded of his agreement with Soun. He hesitantly approached his wife. "W-well…T-there is this other thing…"

* * *

The Nerima district was well known for its strange occurrences, as well as its high concentration of various martial art schools. Amongst this was the little known Tendo School of Anything Goes Martial Arts, which fell into even more obscurity after the dojo master ceased to open its dojo to students many years ago. The household itself, along with the dojo was laid upon an impressive patch of land, which in the crowded metropolis of Tokyo was a commodity in itself. The owner and master of the dojo was a well respected man named Soun Tendo, known mostly due to his position on the Nerima Ward Council, though privately many have stated that he's somewhat of a pushover. Gossip also has it that the style he practiced was somehow related to thievery, to which he would often deny.

This day it seemed that the quaint life of its inhabitants were about to turn into a new direction, and it began with an early morning phone call.

"Hello, this is the Tendo household." The ringing phone was picked up by a brown-haired young lady, who had her long hair tied in a ponytail and laid in front of her chest. It appears that she had been busy with breakfast preparations, as she had walked out of the kitchen with an apron still on. She briefly exchanged pleasantries with whoever was on the phone, before turning to call the intended recipient. "Father, there is a phone call for you, from someone named Saotome."

"Saotome?!" Upon hearing the name, Soun immediately rushed towards the phone.

"Thank you Kasumi." The young woman, now identified as Kasumi, passed over the handset with a gentle smile before returning to the kitchen. The man was quite excited and it showed in the way he exchanged greetings with whoever was on the other side of the phone. The conversation wasn't very long, but it had an effect on Soun as he ended the call being overjoyed.

"Kasumi!" He called out to his eldest daughter who peeked out of the kitchen upon hearing her name. "Please gather in the living room later, I will have an announcement to make after I find your sisters."

With that said, he turned and walked through the house, looking for his other two daughters. He found his second eldest in her room, having just woken up and answered him groggily. Her brown haired pageboy cut poking messily all over the place as she rubbed her eyes to make the sleepiness go away. Try as he might, he could not find his youngest anywhere. As he pondered her location, the girl in question was just returning from her morning jog. She quickly headed to the dojo that was built inside their home after announcing her return. Changing quickly into the martial arts clothing she had left there beforehand; she proceeded with her practice by breaking cinder blocks. However, her usual morning routing was about to be interrupted.

"Geez, breaking blocks again? No wonder the boys think you're strange Akane." The short haired girl announced, poking her head into the dojo. Having already washed up, she showed a very different presence than the one she had when half awake. Her calculating gaze observed her younger sister as they took in her movements. She had long hair tied up in a way reminiscent of their eldest sister, though her current attire and the angry way she turned to look at her made it very difficult to make the connection. The two of the elder children had brown hairs whereas the youngest child had dark hair that seemed slightly blue when under the sun.

"Why should I care? Not everyone thinks the world revolves around boys, Nabiki." The girl turned back to speak at her, slightly annoyed.

The three Tendo sisters were all quite attractive in their own ways. The eldest, Kasumi, was a gentle beauty though quite matronly in how she acted. Often considered the matriarch in the way she took care of the house, though some neighbors privately lamented that the young woman was wasting away in such an environment. She would often wave away their concerns and state that she was quite happy where she was. The second born, Nabiki, usually presented a stoic face to the public, but to those who knew her closely would know that it was a façade, and that she would show a foxy grin whenever she was up to mischief. Those who were attracted to her only dared admire her from afar, and gave her the title of "Ice Queen".

The youngest, Akane, was quite different from her sisters. She was seen to be more boyish due to being the only one out of the three to have kept practicing their family art. Privately she strived to be more like Kasumi, who she saw as a mother figure since she was too young to have much memory of their mother when she passed away. She would fervently deny it when anyone called her a tomboy, sometimes even violently. Strangely enough, her energetic outbursts caught the attention of an upperclassman at her school, and led to a boom in her popularity. Now the saying "beating boys off with a stick" could even be applied to her literally. She had her suspicions, but she could never find evidence that Nabiki had a hand in engineering this fiasco.

"Well, daddy said that he'll have an announcement for us. He's waiting in the living room." Nabiki said then turned away without waiting for a reply. Slightly annoyed at her sister, but still curious about what their father would have to say, Akane moved to follow her.

"What I'm about to say is about your future, not to mention the Tendo School." The Tendo patriarch began. This piqued Akane's interest since she was the sole remaining practitioner out of the three sisters, therefore defaulting as the heir. As their father continued to speak it seemed that it would be something not to their liking.

"A fiancé?" The three of them gasped in unison.

"Yes, his name is Ranma Saotome. He's the son of a very good friend of mine as well as master to another branch of the Anything Goes Style." Soun nodded solemnly.

"If one of you were to marry him and carry on the Tendo Dojo, then our family's legacy would be secure."

"Wait a minute! Don't we have any say in who we want to marry?" Akane was the first one to speak out, being the most active of the three.

"Akane's right, we don't even know what kind of person he is." The other two followed up on her objection.

"Well, that's easily fixed." Soun answered to their surprise. It seemed that the phone call earlier was to arrange a visit from their family. He continued to add some details upon seeing their curious faces, though Akane was looking at the side in disinterest.

"Ranma and his father had been on a training voyage since he was young." Akane muttered something about it not being that great walking all over Japan, though one could notice a hint of jealousy in her voice if they paid close attention. Even if she was an accomplished martial artist in her own way, she was mostly self taught since her father had long since refused to further her training beyond the basics after their mother passed away.

"Wow, is he cute?" Nabiki interjected. Beside her, Kasumi commented something about how younger men bored her. Soun chuckled nervously to their questions before putting on a serious face.

"Actually, I have no idea."

"No idea?" Nabiki pressed.

"I've never met him." The three girls could only rub their heads in exasperation at this answer before they decided to break up this meeting, seeing that they wouldn't be able to get any more details out of him. Kasumi went back to the kitchen to finish up the morning preparations as well as decide what to serve their guests later in the day. Nabiki returned to her room to pick out an outfit meant to impress, whereas Akane got back to the dojo to vent some frustrations. Soun could only sigh in relief as his girls seemed to take it better than he expected.

* * *

The entire Saotome family was on an outing today with a tag-along. It seemed rare for them to go out somewhere as a whole since any holidays they had was taken up by Genma to train his son in the art. However, it was suspicious that he was rather tight lipped about their destination and also in the way that he tried to convince the prince against coming. Under the pressure of Emilio he finally mentioned that they were going to meet an old family friend. Since he had no other way of deterring him without giving up any other detail, he had no choice but to let him come along. Little Akari skipped alongside her sister as she was excited at the fact of going out together. Their mother had dressed her in a child sized kimono while Ranma was given a lucky reprieve since the only ones she could wear were the ones Nodoka had. In her mother's opinion they were a bit old fashioned and would look unflattering on her. She shivered as she recalled her mother making a silent note to herself to let the prince buy a few brighter sets for her use in future festivals. Emilio followed stoically as he walked behind them, observing the girl he intended to make his wife. She was wearing a set of blouse and trousers out of those that had been "accidentally" displaced into the collection of clothing he had set up for her back in his castle. He would prefer it if she wore more feminine clothes, though he admitted that she would probably look good in anything. They also had an added bonus in that they hid her attributes from the leering gazes of any males who dared to lay their eyes on his wife-to-be.

Not soon after they stopped before a pair of wooden gates. The sign on top proclaimed it to be the Tendo dojo, and judging by the walls surrounding it, the property was surprisingly large.

"Wow, I didn't know you still had any friends, pop. Not less one with property." Genma grumbled at the snarky comment, but headed to knock without any retorts. Rapid shuffling footsteps could be heard before the gate slammed open.

"Genma! Old pal! It's so good to see you!" A long haired man suddenly engulfed him in a hug. Behind him three girls could be seen staring out in curiosity. He then turned to look for the man's son but paused in confusion as he only saw Saotome's wife as well as two girls and a foreigner. "Err… Saotome…. Your son?"

"Ahh… well, that takes some explaining…" Genma sweated as he tried to think of a suitable way of breaking the news to his old training partner.

"Father, don't you think it would be better for our guests to head inside?" Kasumi gently reminded him.

"Yes, of course. Where are my manners? Please come in!" As they passed through the gate they caught a glimpse of a vast yard and a connected dojo. They were taken into the main building where Soun led them to their seats in the living room and introduced them to each other.

"Now, Saotome…Why don't you explain what's going on?" Soun's glare intensified as he stared into the eyes of his old time friend after making brief introductions. Genma was suddenly at a loss for words and could only sweat nervously. Nodoka decided to take over since it appeared that her husband wasn't going to do anything.

The tale she related seemed to be something straight out of fantasy. The Tendos listened attentively as she wove a story of two men. A prince, a martial artist, castles, the rescue, and the resulting gender change. Ranma shied away as their attention turned on her once they realized that the protagonists were right in front of them. Emilio however, seemed to be right in his element as he took their stares in stride.

"Oh my…that's so romantic. A love across the stars, even gender…Two lovers getting together despite all odds…" Kasumi looked into the distance as she went into her own little world, a disturbing gleam in her eyes. It was obvious that she was probably embellishing the story in her minds. Beside her, Nabiki thought that her sister probably read a little too much of those trashy romance novels whereas Akane could only sweat-drop at her sister's actions.

"Wait a minute! That's not what happened!" Ranma objected to the young woman's summarization of the events, but she was ignored as Soun tried to bring the subject back on track.

"I see…you must have gone through a lot of hardships, Saotome." He turned to his old training partner, tears threatening to fall from his eyes. "But what are we going to do about the engagement?"

"Engagement?!" Emilio's eyes immediately narrowed at the word. He switched to looking menacingly at the bald martial artist. "I hope you aren't thinking of going back on our contract, Genma Saotome."

Said man immediately moved into action and pulled aside his fellow master of the Anything Goes Style for a quick conference. "Help me out here, old pal! The man is deeply in love with my son and would almost do anything for him, err, her!"

"He rules over an entire nation and is rich to boot! Once we get our hands on his wealth, we can trick him into changing Ranma back into a boy and still get the schools joined! We will be able to live out our retirement in luxury! Our legacy secured!" Soun seemed to be intrigued by the plan as Genma whispered a few more details to him. Outwardly he remained stoic but the way that his eyes were already filled by yen signs showed that he was all for it.

"Well then…I suppose that the engagement can be postponed…" He cleared his throat to compose himself, but his statement was interrupted by the outcry of his youngest daughter.

"Come on, daddy! Don't tell me you're actually going to believe this fraud!" It was obvious to Akane that the Saotomes never had sons, and had probably cooked up this story to continue with the farce that was the engagement. Their target was surely to be the dojo that will be given as a dowry. Well, there was no way they were going to get their hands on her inheritance! It did surprise her that such a respectable looking lady like Nodoka would participate in this scam, but she guessed that people would do anything for money these days.

"You would dare question the integrity of my intended and her family?!" Emilio stood up, enraged by the baseless accusation she laid upon the Saotomes.

"It's not as if you have any proof!" She pointed a finger at him.

"What if I said I could prove it?" Emilio smirked. There was no need for these peasants to be taken to his grand castle. They were mere strangers and it would pose a great security threat. Instead he had a much simpler solution. Ranma leaned forward slightly as he took out a familiar looking vial.

"This is a temporary version of the medicine I used on Ranma, a mere sip would allow you to change genders." He shook the vial a bit, drawing their attention to the liquid contained within. "If you were to take it, it would show that their story is no fabrication."

"Don't even try to think of taking this, Ranma. It would be useless for you as it is too weak to overcome what I've used on you." She had already been fidgeting, seeking a lapse in his attention so that she could take it. She could only slump in disappointment as he pointed out that fact. Satisfied that his fiancée wasn't going to do anything rash, Emilio turned a smug look towards the youngest Tendo.

"Do not worry, the medicine is only temporary." The look on the prince's face was already annoying Akane. His eyes looked down on her, seemingly conveying the thought that she was too chicken to do it.

"Fine! I'll do it! I'll show you!" She snatched the vial from his hand, uncorked it, and upended the thing, not noticing his look of surprise as she drained the liquid. She wiped away some of the excess that had gathered at the corner of her mouth. The medicine had tasted a bit bitter, it was a bit unpleasant to drink but it was nothing she couldn't take. She waited a few moments as nothing seemed to happen. "Hah! I knew it! You're just a…"

Her cry of victory was interrupted as she suddenly felt weak. The vial in her hand dropped to the ground and rolled away as her legs lost the strength to support her and she fell as well. Her sisters rushed to her side in worry and gasped in surprise as her body began to change. She could feel the weight on top of her chest diminish as her body stretched and filled out the gi she had on. The black belt she used to tie up her top became taut as she grew, and to her horror she could feel something fill out below as her underwear stretched and even became a bit painful.

"Wait, what did it…" The voice that came from her was much lower than what she was used to. She looked down at her hands to see that they were no longer thin and dainty, and a quick feel of her chest confirmed the fact that they were now flat as a board. Unable to take the shock, there was only one thing she could do. She fainted.

"Of all the stupid things…" Emilio shook his head as he moved to pick up the now empty vial. Soun was shocked into action when his youngest daughter became unconscious.

"What did you do to my baby?! Change her back now!" The demon head technique he used would have been terrifying to anyone else, but now it quickly popped as the prince shot a ball of lightning through it. Soun managed to dodge it in time, and he slumped by the wall, staring at the smoking hole on it in shock.

"I have already said that the medicine is temporary! However the amount of time it remains in effect is in relation to the amount taken. Given that she drank the whole thing, she would probably stay that way for a few days." He stared back in annoyance at the man.

"What! Please, can't you change her back before that?!" The attitude the long haired martial artist had now was a complete 180 from what he had before. Tears fell freely from his eyes as he stood on his knees to beg the prince to do something.

"She still has an excess amount of the medicine in her system. Overdosing as she had is dangerous enough and introducing other things to counteract it might have adverse effects. There's really nothing to do but to wait for it to be worked out of her system."

The Tendo patriarch broke down and was soon bawling about the plight of his poor baby girl. They moved the girl-turned-temporary-boy back into his room then returned to continue their discussion.

"I guess that proves the validity of their story." Nabiki took over the negotiations since their father was still indisposed.

"I suppose that since both sides only have girls now, the agreement won't be able to be fulfilled." Nodoka stated.

"No! That is unacceptable! The schools must be joined!" It appears that Soun was still keeping ear on the conversation despite being occupied with crying his eyes out. Strangely enough Genma didn't join him in his defense of their pact, but given the way that the prince was glaring at him one could easily guess the reason.

"Well, we could always find some way for Akane to remain a guy and have him marry the girl that way." Nabiki suggested as a joke.

"I refuse! I should be the only one that Ranma is going to be wed to!" Emilio immediately objected. Of course this was met with a denial from Ranma and the two started bickering.

"Geez, the two of you already argue like an old couple." Nabiki observed.

"We do not!" Ranma denied. The prince remained silent as he seemed to be pleased at being seen like that. Ranma huffed before deciding to ignore him.

They continued to throw out suggestions, only to be shot down by either side of the opposition. Various scenarios continued to be discussed. Eventually they were able to reach a compromise.

"Finally, then it's agreed." Soun had regained his composure somewhere during the last legs of their concessions. Now he was grinning happily as he and his friend patted each other on the back. He then suggested that they commemorate this moment by having a celebratory drink. However, this idea was shot down by Nodoka who had felt that the girls probably already had too much excitement for the day and that they had imposed on their hospitality long enough. Soun countered by inviting them for dinner, but the Saotome matriarch politely but firmly declined.

After the Saotome entourage was shown their way out, Kasumi collected the small plates with snacks and the cups while Nabiki went to check on her sister, now brother.

"How are you feeling, 'brother'?" Akane heard when she finally woke up from her impromptu "nap". She turned her head to see her sister Nabiki leaning against her desk. Behind her, Kasumi came in with a bowl of water as well as a small towel.

"Oh no, it wasn't a bad dream was it?" "He" groaned as he noticed what his sister called him. He rubbed his eyes hard before looking down again but that didn't change the fact the he was now a male. Though, he didn't recall wearing his father's clothes before fainting. He looked at his sister for an answer.

"Oh, Kasumi changed your clothing when you were out like a light. It didn't look very comfortable when you are larger as a guy. Big sister here probably got a really good look." Nabiki shot a sly grin at the aforementioned girl, who was setting down the bowl at the table. Her grin widened when she noticed her sweet old sister reddening ever so slightly. "Oho! So you did! Tell me Kasumi, just how big is our 'brother'?"

"Nabiki!" She chastised, abashed at being involved in such an improper topic. However, it was rare for a chance to tease the ever composed Kasumi, and Nabiki simple couldn't let it go away. But she didn't get a chance to do much.

"Sisters! I would prefer it if you not mention 'it'. I really don't want to think about it right now." Akane interrupted. The two girls ceased their playful bantering and instead focused on him with worried looks.

"So, did they say how long I'm going to stay like this?"

"Well, that alien prince of theirs said that it will probably last a few days."

"DAYs? What am I going to do about school?"

"Then you really shouldn't have taken the whole thing. That'll teach you to be goaded that easily." Nabiki teased, but then frowned as it didn't lighten the atmosphere as she intended. "Anyway, you don't have to worry about school. I'm sure we can be excused for a few days while the transfers are being processed."

"Transfers? We are changing schools?" Akane looked at her in confusion while Kasumi sat down on the bed to check on his condition.

"Part of the agreement was that the children get to know each other better, to do that they decided that you and I will have to transfer to Ranma's school." She paused, considering a few things before shaking her head. "The best part is that we don't have to do a thing as they said that the prince of theirs would handle everything. I've heard of that school of theirs and I think we'll get better prospects of getting into a good University if I graduated there instead. Though honestly, any other school will probably be better than Furinkan."

Akane didn't care much for the last part as he really hadn't thought that much far ahead. Going to a new school meant that he would be leaving behind all of his friends and heading somewhere full of strangers. Well, at least there will be a familiar face. He thought of the red head girl who hadn't said much and merely took care of her little sister. He then paused as he was reminded of what they said in the story. If they were right, then she used to be a boy. It was hard to think of her that way as she looked too pretty to be anything but that.

There was nothing he could do about the school thing as it was already decided. So the only thing he could do was to get on with his life, and the first step began by getting out of the bed. Akane swung his legs over the side of the bed and stood up. Immediately he started to tilt forward as his center of balance was different and he miscalculated the strength he needed to raise his body. During his bid for balance his hand caught the bowl of water that was on the table and it splashed all over him as he fell down on the floor. It was going to be a few long, long days.

* * *

"Oh dear, what are we going to do about dinner?" Nodoka was suddenly reminded. They had originally planned for them arrive back home with time left for meal preparations, though they hadn't discounted the possibility of staying as well. But after causing all that trouble, it would be too shameless of them to impose on the Tendos any longer. "Maybe we could eat out somewhere…"

"If I may suggest, why don't we retire to my castle?" Emilio suddenly came into her view, a charismatic smile on his face. "I'm sure that my kitchen staff will be able to prepare a feast in a matter of minutes, and the quality of food is much better than any establishment on Earth has to offer."

"W-well…" Nodoka cast a look at the rest of her family. Genma and Ranma really didn't care as long as there was food, and Akari-chan was already getting a little bit grumpy due to being hungry. "If it's not too much trouble…"

"Nonsense, it's no trouble at all."

Emilio led them to a nearby empty lot where he signaled his staff to open a gate. With a single step they were transported off the face of Earth. Though most of they had been there once before, the view of the majestic castle still amazed them. Especially since this time they arrived at night and the lights made for a mesmerizing view. They were greeted once again by the rows of servants as they entered the main hall.

"Now then, why don't you ladies freshen up while I have my staff make the preparations?" Emilio gestured, and a group of maids escorted them away before Ranma could say otherwise. Genma was similarly led away by a few male servants. He stood there smiling until they left the hall, at which point his personal butler came out from behind a column.

"Do you really think this plan of yours will work?" He asked.

"Yes, my Lord." Alfred began to explain. "From the interactions between you and Miss Ranma in the past few days, our analysts have already come to the conclusion that she is too hard headed to cave in to your demands. Push her too hard and it will have the opposite effect as she will fight tooth and nail against it."

The prince agreed with that statement, comparing it with his own observations. He gestured for his servant to continue.

"However, we have also noticed that she seemed to care much for her mother and sister. They are able to get her to agree to things that she wouldn't have accepted otherwise, as shown from the time when she was taken to shop for clothing." He handed the prince a few papers containing pictures from that time, as well as the analysis of said images.

"Therefore, we are of the opinion that the best course of action is to try and gain their cooperation. The first step should begin with improving your image in their minds…"

The prince nodded as Alfred continued to outline their plan. He handed back the papers as his personal servant finished his report, and headed to the smaller, royal dining hall where he sat down at the head of the table. There was another much larger dining hall that was reserved for guests and also used for official functions, but he felt that they deserved the privilege of joining him here as they were to become family in the future.

The sound of the doors opening drew his attention as the maids entered the room to introduce what could be one of the loveliest visions he would have the pleasure to see.

"Marvelous, absolutely marvelous! The three of you are true visions of beauty if I may say so myself." He stood up to greet them as they entered. The mother and her daughters were all dressed in similar gowns, their hair done up and adorned with some expensive looking jewelry. The youngest Saotome however retained her distinctive hairstyle as the maids had thought that she looked cute enough as she was, but a few elaborate bows have been put into it for good measure.

"My, my…" Nodoka fanned herself as she blushed at the compliment, Akari fidgeted beside her as she barely held back her excitement. The remaining member of the three however, had a completely different reaction.

"Hey! What's the big idea, putting me into something like this?!" Ranma stomped up to him. Just when she thought that she could spend a day without wearing a dress, she finds herself forced into one again.

"Is there a problem with that? I think you look quite good in it." Emilio gave her a smug look. For some reason he couldn't help but keep on teasing her from time to time, as her reactions were really amusing to him.

"Of course there is! Why can't you just…" Her objections were interrupted by Nodoka who placed a hand on her shoulder.

"Now, now… Ranma, you should really learn to take a compliment better." Nodoka chided, hiding her face behind the small folding fan that had been part of the accessories as she was still a bit red from earlier. Her daughter settled down but not before mumbling something about how she thought the prince was doing it on purpose.

Nodoka was led to seat at the right side of Emilio and both Ranma and Akari sat down on his left. After a few moments Genma finally arrived following a few servants. He was still wearing his original clothes as he had disappeared somewhere along the way and it took them this long to finally find him again. He sat down beside his wife and the prince gestured for his staff to begin the meal. Trolleys were pushed in, and plates after plates of exotic foods were placed on the table. Both Genma and Ranma seemed to become entranced by the tantalizing aroma, and were only brought out of it by the cold glare of the Saotome matriarch. They shivered slightly as her eyes seemed to say, "Mind your manners."

The prince soon announced for them to "dig in". The food was every bit as tasty as it appeared and the two martial artists of the group had to visibly restrain themselves from falling back into bad habits lest they incur the wrath of at least one person in the room. Despite their not getting into a full blown food fight, they still emptied and refilled their plates quite quickly, though Ranma was obviously much slower than her father in getting her fill since she had to stop now and then to help her little sister. Soon the table was cleared and even the dishes of desserts that were brought up later didn't last much longer.

It was a very satisfied and well fed group that was brought back to the Saotome residence. Emilio held Ranma as they walked through the gate since she was moving almost drunkenly due to being drowsy from filling herself with food. Akari was already fast asleep and her parents took her upstairs to put her to bed. He sat her down in the living room besides himself to rest for a while. She seemed too out of it to react or else she would have protested his closeness to her.

"Hmm… so good…" Ranma let out a content moan as she snuggled closer to him. This moment was sure to be burned into Emilio's memory as she would never do it willingly at this stage of their relationship. The half-lidded glance as she looked up in his direction as well as the sounds she was making were surely having an interesting effect on his libido. He tried to control himself but still couldn't help as his head lowered towards her lips.

"Ahem!" The prince sat up straight as someone cleared their throat. He looked towards the direction of the noise to find Nodoka giving him a knowing glance.

"The two of you might be engaged but I'm sure that Ranma wouldn't appreciate being kissed in her sleep." She gave him an amused smile, taking Ranma from his arms. She gently shook her back into a somewhat awake state and marched her up to her room. Emilio could only look at their backs as they walked out, greatly disappointed at being interrupted.

* * *

A little over a week has passed and finally the school was ready to reopen. It was amazing that the gym was completely rebuilt during this short period and they had the extremely efficient Nerima construction companies to thank for. For Ranma however the day was already feeling bad as she had to endure the increasing amount of stares as she neared the school gates. It was only made worse as a crowd had formed near her shoe locker. The prince stood by her side and was probably the reason that she hadn't been overwhelmed by the students that were looking at her from a distance. As the prince changed his shoes, she noticed that he used the locker beside hers. He probably used some of his influence since she was sure that said locker was already in use before he transferred into the school. Sighing, she opened her own and was suddenly flooded by letters.

"What are these?" Emilio looked at the pile of envelopes on the ground.

"What does it look like? They're challenge letters." She rolled her eyes at him before taking out her new indoor slippers to change into. "Though it's the first time I've received so many at once."

She picked up the pile and stuffed them all into her school bag, deciding to take care of them letter. A lot of them used envelopes that were all flowery or contained hearts. Maybe it was a new trend or something? Shrugging, she shouldered her bag and headed to her classroom, followed by the prince. Classes soon began. Even though there was a new transfer student today she didn't garner much attention apart from the boys who were always eager to check out a pretty girl. The school gossip probably was still centered on what happened to Ranma and everyone was still concentrating on her and "her prince". The first class passed without much incident and during break she decided to begin sorting her letters. Taking out her bag, she overturned it and dumped the whole pile on her desk. She barely began to open the first letter when the transfer student came over to her desk.

"Hi Ranma, we never properly introduced ourselves that day at the dojo. I'm Akane Tendo." The black haired girl said, putting on a friendly smile.

"Oh yeah, you're that girl that got turned into a guy." Ranma recalled, not noticing how her smile became a bit strained.

"I-I would prefer it if you never mentioned that again." The edge of Akane's mouth twitched as she tried to put the incident out of her mind.

"Oh, sorry about that." Ranma looked down in embarrassment.

The situation rapidly turned awkward as they both fell silent. Trying to start a new topic, Akane turned towards the pile of letters on her table. "So, you sure are popular at this school."

Ranma followed her gaze and saw what she was looking at. "Yeah, all of these wannabe martial artists think they can prove something by defeating me. What idiots. It's the first time I've received so many challenge letters at the same time, though."

"Challenge letters?" Akane shook her head, fighting back a chuckle. "You really have no idea do you?"

Ranma stared at her with a blank expression, not understanding what she was getting at. Sighing, Akane explained. "These are love letters."

"What!" Emilio had actually been paying attention to their conversation despite being surrounded by their female classmates. He immediately stomped over to confront them.

"Didn't you say that they were challenge letters?!"

"Don't look at me! Those are the only type of letters I had received! It's not like I knew better!"

"Let me remind you that as my future bride, it is expected of you to…." Their conversation degenerated into a well rehearsed argument as they bantered back and forth over a topic that was quickly getting old: The prince's plans to eventually marry Ranma.

"Fine! If you care about these letters that much, then why don't you take them!" Ranma pushed the pile towards the prince. "You can burn them in a bin or something!"

"No need for that!" A quick ball of lightning was all it took to reduce the papers to ashes, though it spoke well of his control when the only damage to the desk was the scorch marks on the tabletop. A crowd had formed sometime during their argument, and some of the students felt disappointed when the letters were gone. They quickly broke out in cold sweat when the prince turned a steely glance on them. Thankfully the situation was defused by the ringing of the bells, signaling the end of the break. Everyone ran back to their desks before the teacher came in.

The next few periods passed without incident, but since Emilio was still keeping his eyes on her, something was bound to happen. When Ranma stood up to leave the classroom, her path was immediately blocked by the prince.

"Where are you going?" He asked.

"Why should I tell you?" She shot back, already getting annoyed at his antics.

"Because you are my fiancée. How do I know you aren't going to meet one of those men from the letters?!"

"I'm only going to the bathroom! I haven't even read one of the damned things, geez!" Ranma cried out in exasperation. Emilio was still suspicious, but decided to let it go.

"Oh, you're going too? Wait for me, Ranma. I'll go with you." Akane had heard her and caught up at the doors. The two of them walked out of the classroom and headed towards the direction of the restrooms, with Emilio keeping a close eye on them. Behind the trio, a group of girls suddenly decided that it was also a good time to go to the bathroom and followed behind them.

"Stop following us!" Ranma shouted back at their tag-along.

"I am not following you. I have merely decided that I'm also in need of the facilities." It was an obvious lie, but Ranma could only sigh as they continued to walk. They reached the restrooms that were located at the end of the hallway, where they split up to head into their respective bathrooms.

"Wait, what are you doing?" Emilio stopped her as she prepared to enter the male's side.

"What? I'm going to the bathroom." She looked at him in confusion.

"In a room full of males?"

"I don't see any problem with it. I'm a guy after all." Those who were present a little over a week ago would have felt a sense of deja vu.

"Let me remind you that the body you're currently wearing is female. If those males dared to…" He left the threat unsaid as lightning began to course over his arms. Ranma had to think fast if she didn't want school to be canceled again due to another explosion. Her mother had already warned her that she would be forced to do something unpleasant if she lost more days of school. She shivered at the thought.

"Fine fine! But where else can I go? It's not as if I can go over to the girl's side." Ranma waved her arms in front of him, trying to calm him down. Help came surprisingly from the girls in her class.

"Well…I don't really have any problems with it." The girls that had followed them were looking at the situation with great interest when one of them suddenly spoke out.

"Huh?" Ranma's head turned so fast that Emilio almost got whiplash from her ponytail.

"Ranma doesn't act like the perverted boys in class, so I guess I'm fine with it." Another girl decided to put in her two cents. It was true. Back when she was still a boy she had never thought those topics to be interesting, preferring to focus on the martial arts. He only spoke to them about some daily topics and some of them he even had to communicate through fists. This was why Ryoga was such a good friend in Ranma's opinion. They had the same interests so they had no lack of topics to talk about, and if they ran out of things to say they could always finish up with a good fight. A smile tugged at her lips at the memories of a good time, but her sudden reminisce was interrupted by the comments of the rest of the girls.

"She does have a girl's body now, I don't see why we shouldn't let her go…" More and more girls raised their hands in agreement. Eventually they came to the conclusion to treat her as a girl even though there was the possibility that she was still mentally a boy. Ranma could only look around in confusion as the girls pushed her inside now that they had reached a consensus.

'Was she really a boy?' Akane wondered as she observed their antics, before following them inside once she noticed that the break was due to end soon.

'Earthlings are strange.' Emilio thought as he watched in disbelief at their retreating backs. Unknown to either of them, a similar thought was also going through Ranma's mind. Except that the word "Earthlings" was replaced with "Girls".

True to their words, most of Ranma's female classmates didn't have any problems with her being a girl, though a small group was jealous towards her for having the attention of the prince. When time came for them to change for gym classes they ended up dragging her to the girls changing room, since it appeared that she was going to change right there with the boys again despite the prince's warning on the last time. Though they averted a disaster by doing that, Ranma found it difficult to look around as everyone changed. Nearby, Akane changed by herself as she still hadn't fully integrated into the class, being her first day and all. Before long, she found herself the last one left in the changing room as Ranma was dragged out by a few girls.

"Where in the world am I now!" Someone suddenly shouted near her, she looked around to find a boy wearing a yellow and black spotted bandanna standing with his back to her. He turned around at her gasp of surprise, causing her to scream at the top of her lungs. The last thing he noticed was a fist heading towards him at high speed.

"Pervert!" A strong punch was all it took to send the boy barreling towards the wall, cracking it slightly. Akane fell forward as her anger was suddenly replaced by a weakness overcoming her.

"What is it!" The door slammed open as the female gym teacher came in to see what had caused that great noise, followed by all of the girls in the class. What they found was an unconscious male near a dented wall. Another male knelt on the ground, half dressed in a girl's gym clothes.

"What! Perverts in the girl's changing rooms!" The girls went into a commotion at the teacher's shout.

"Come to think of it, wasn't that new girl, Akane still changing?" Another girl suddenly recalled. Unknown to them, said girl was still nearby.

Akane was still in shock as she tried to come to terms with the strange turn of events. A strange but familiar feeling had coursed through her body as different parts expanded and retracted. By the time she hit the ground the changes had already finished. The murmurs from the girls finally grew too loud for her to ignore, and she finally noticed the crowd that had gathered.

"No! Wait! This is all a misunderstanding!" The girl-turned-boy called out, waving a hand in their direction to plead his innocence. Heedless to say, they all returned an unforgiving gaze.

"You know…that guy looks familiar." Ranma tried to remember where she had seen him before. Seeing a ray of hope, Akane seized this chance to explain.

"Ranma! You remember me, right?! It's Akane!" He pleaded. Ranma seemed to have trouble recalling him, since she tilted her head to the side to think. To his relief, she was finally able to connect his face to a memory as she hit her palm in realization.

"Oh yeah, that's right!" She took a few steps forward and turned to face her classmates. "He's telling the truth, Akane took a medicine from Emilio a few days ago that turned her into a boy…"

The rest of the girls relaxed as Ranma recounted the tale, but a few girls still looked at him in suspicion. The teacher called for the class to return to the gym while she sorted things out. Both Ryoga and Akane were taken to the infirmary, the fanged boy was left in a bed while they asked around for a spare set of boy uniform for Akane to wear, as he looked very uncomfortable in those tight fitting clothing.

"When they told me you were in the infirmary this was the last thing I expected, you know." Nabiki shook her head in exasperation once she came inside as saw the state her "little sister" was in. "Though I guess you were always the one that had strange things occurring around, so something like this would have happened sooner or later."

The middle Tendo took the chance to observe the male form that she had only seen a few times in the past few days, as the girl had all but locked herself up in her room until she finally changed back. The girl turned boy's hairstyle still remained the same, though if it had been straighter and brushed back it would have reminded her of their father. From the front though, there was no way anyone would mistake him for that, as Akane has always resembled their mother the most. The face was still similar, though more angular in the way that made it look masculine. The major difference was in the body. His height seemed to have shot up to somewhere near that of their eldest sister, Kasumi. The shoulder was broader and if she looked close enough there were hints of a pair of well developed biceps inside of those sleeves. Well something had to show after all that hard practice breaking bricks.

Nabiki brushed off Akane's glare and turned towards Ranma and Emilio, the latter having been called in earlier. "How did this happen? I thought the medicine wears off after a while?"

"That's what we're trying to find out." Ranma gave her an apologetic smile, before glaring at the prince beside her. "…and don't even think of saying no since you're the one that gave her the damned thing in the first place."

In reality the girl was the one who had taken the medicine out of his hands, but he did play a role in goading her. He didn't deny his fiancée's request since he felt somewhat responsible. Emilio nodded.

To the relief of the people in the room, Akane turned back to normal in front of their eyes. The male clothing was rather loose on her, and she barely had time to catch the pants before she exposed her lower body. Reddening in embarrassment, she sat down in the nearby empty bed and covered herself with the sheets. Even though the girl had already changed back, they still needed to figure out what had happened, so the prince still called his staff to send over a medical team. Soon they arrived with a wide assortment of alien equipment to examine the girl and they set it up to scan her body.

"Hmm…that's interesting. This sort of thing has never happened before." Emilio commented as he observed the readout on one of the screens. Ranma and Nabiki came over to see what he was talking about, but couldn't make heads or tails of the alien symbols.

"What's going on?" They both asked.

"It seems that there are residues of the medicine inside her body, which is strange since everything should have passed through her system already. Right now it looks to be dormant; however some sort of stimuli seemed to have activated it earlier."

"You mean to say that I may still change at random times? How long will it keep on affecting me?" Akane paled at the thought. She had already tried to pretend incident at the dojo never happened, and even went an extra mile by ignoring the prince's existence today. Now that she's going to keep changing there was no use in doing that anymore. Besides, the prince was probably her best chance to become cured anyway.

"It is a possibility. However, it's hard to say because medicine like this is usually heavily regulated to prevent misuse, and there have never been recorded cases of overdosing." It goes without saying that as the ruler, he was the one who approved such regulations, and remained one of the few exceptions. The people that use them regularly also know better than to not adhere to the prescribed doses.

Akane slumped back into the bed in depression, groaning at the thought of changing randomly for an undetermined time in the future. The event today was already mortifying, what was she going to do? Her reputation at this school was probably ruined at this stage. At least she hadn't been found out when she was still attending Furinkan. The girls over there were more active against perverts due to the boys being incited by a senior student to challenge her. All that testosterone flying in the air probably made them think more with their base instincts and the cases of peeping had been steadily going up. As a result, they would have probably reacted violently before she had a time to explain. Akane sighed. If it were her old self she would have probably been at the head, leading the fight against perverts, but now…

The lost boy chose this time to wake up, drawing the attention of everyone in the room and breaking her out of her downwards spiral of depression.

"Where am I…" The boy groaned as he struggled to open his eyes, hands holding his head in pain.

"Hey man! You're finally up!" Ranma drew back the curtain that had been hiding his bed from view. Ryoga's eyes widened at the sound of her voice and he swung his head to look at her.

"R-Ranma…h-hi!" He blushed, twiddling his fingers and stuttering out a greeting. However, with the curtains drawn back, he was exposed to Akane's view and it didn't take long for her to remember what had happened at the changing room earlier.

"You pervert! You were watching me change in that room, weren't you?!" She pointed a finger at him in accusation, but before she could deal out some righteous female fury her body started changing again. Akane looked down in dismay as she was once again changed into a boy; whatever grievance she had with Ryoga was suddenly put on hold.

"Ah, it appears that we've found the trigger." Emilio followed the readout. The equipment was still active when she changed this time, so they were able to capture what was happening at the moment of change. "For some reason, her anger seems to be what is activating the medicine…curious…"

"Do you hear that Akane? If you don't want to turn into a boy, then all you have to do is to not get angry. Easy, right?" Nabiki said to her sister, grinning slyly. Akane gave her a look of annoyance before she turned back to hear the rest of the prince's explanations.

"Each change should revert anywhere from 15 minutes to half an hour after the stimulus stops as traces of the medicine are consumed." He made a few adjustments on the screen before continuing. "According to the analysis, the residue should last a little bit over a year depending on the rate of change."

This made Akane feel a bit relieved, as she wasn't going to keep on changing for the rest of her life. But a year still felt like a long time…

"Errm…I don't really know what's going on here." It was unwise for Ryoga to draw attention back to himself, as this also brought back the ire of Akane. She was careful to try and hold back her anger, as she didn't want to extend the time of her change, so she settled for glaring at him.

"Oh, yeah you haven't met each other yet before today." As Ranma made the introductions, Ryoga couldn't help but feel a bit unnerved by the hateful gaze Akane kept sending him. After greetings were exchanged, they began the long wait. Thankfully she changed back some time before the last bell rang, signaling the end of the school day. The trio of Ryoga, Ranma, and Emilio left along with the equipment after making sure she would be alright. Having changed back to her uniform, Akane and her sister Nabiki walked out of the school amidst the curious glances and whispers of their fellow students, leaving her to head home with heavy footsteps.

Their travel back was spent mostly in silence, each of them having things on their minds as they reflected over the events of their first day at a new school. Nabiki would sneak glances at her sister every now and then, though it was difficult to see what she was thinking through her cold façade. They finally arrived back home after the long walk, where Akane immediately went to her room after they announced their return. Kasumi had come out to greet them, and watched in curiosity as she passed by her to head upstairs. Nabiki returned her greeting before moving to relate the tale while looking for some snacks in the kitchen.

Upon entering her room, Akane dropped her bag on the floor and immediately jumped face first into her bed. During their short walk out of the school yard, she had already caught a glimpse of the gossip that was beginning to circulate around. Most of them accurate, two males were found in the girl's changing rooms, one of the males was actually a girl, the Alien prince had struck again and turned a girl into a boy, things like that. But some of them actually went on to insinuate that she was actually a boy! Back in Furinkan, the things that she couldn't take the most was how the girls always commented on her boyish tendencies because of her interests in the martial arts, and how she fought with multitudes of boys every morning due to a challenge. A challenge that she didn't even start! One of her seniors had become infatuated with her after she defeated him once back when she was considering joining the Kendo club. He just couldn't accept her rejection of his advances and later even announced during a school assembly that those who wished for her hand would have to defeat her in combat! For some reason a lot of boys took his words as gospel and from then on attacked her every morning in hordes. It felt flattering to be the most popular girl at school, but she could do without this sort of attention.

She sighed as she got up from her bed and sat down at her small vanity to observe her appearance. She brought her long hair to her front and considered her reasons for growing it out. When she was younger she had always kept it short. However as she got older she decided that she wanted to be more like her eldest sister Kasumi and began letting it grow. At the time she had wished to become more feminine and since Kasumi was the most feminine person she knew, she thought that by imitating her hairstyle she would start heading in that direction. She forced herself to smile, only becoming more depressed at her reflection. Well, there is no way she would be considered feminine now if she risked turning into a boy every now and then. Suddenly bitter, she took out a pair of scissors and began cutting off the hair she could see in front of her.

Having heard the entire story from Nabiki, Kasumi couldn't help but be worried about her youngest sister. Appearances were a big part of a girl's self image, to have something like that happen in front of her classmates was sure to be a big blow. She walked upstairs and stopped at a door with a duck-shaped nameplate. For some reason she hesitated for a moment before knocking on the door.

"Akane? It's Kasumi. I've heard from Nabiki, are you feeling Okay?" There was no answer for a while. Then she heard movement in the room behind the door before footsteps approached to unlock the door. She was surprised at the sight when the door opened.

"Akane! Your hair…" The long hair that once reached her back now hung above her shoulders, though the ends were all at different lengths as if someone had cut through them wildly.

"I decided to go for a new look!" The girl smiled at her, though Kasumi could see that it was a bit strained. In her hands she held a pair of scissors that she handed to her. "I was hoping…Maybe you could help me even it out?"

Kasumi nodded absently and accepted the sharp instrument of cutting. She took out a piece of cloth to prevent the hair from getting into her sister's garments, sat her down at the vanity and got to work. Once she was done, Akane was able to check out her sister's handiwork.

What she now had was a short haired style that was reminiscent of her childhood, though she guessed that was to be expected since Kasumi was the one that always took care of cutting their hairs once she was old enough. Unless they wanted something complicated her sweet old sister could always be able to give them a satisfying styling. She had always been curious about where she had learned to do something like that, but Kasumi would always give her a mysterious smile and say that a woman has to have her secrets.

Seeing herself with that familiar look reminded her of how she was frequently confused for a boy. She sighed, "I guess I always did look better with shorter hair, didn't I?"

"Oh Akane…" Kasumi put down the scissors and moved to hug her sister. With her head in her sister's chest, Akane mumbled something unintelligible before she began sobbing, the day's events finally getting to her.

* * *

Despite the two separate weeks of forced breaks, Heimei High School's annual marathon was still proceeding as usual. Buses were already rented and parked in the school yard, just waiting for the students to board. The only thing left was for the students to change into their gym clothes.

For Akane, school was going better than she expected. She caused quite a stir when she arrived at school in her new hairstyle, but it served as a good icebreaker as her classmates gathered to talk about it, and she even learned that there were a few students that were sympathetic to her plight. However, when there are people who are supportive of you, there will also be people that are against you.

At the head of that was Izumi, though that was mostly a case of guilty by association. Izumi was a girl that had always enjoyed her popularity at school. Her tall height, lustrous hair, beautiful face, and a well proportioned body made her stand out amongst the female population of the school. She caught the eyes of many boys in the school, and they would do almost anything for her. Underneath her outer appearance however, lay a darker personality. Boys were like playthings to her. Whenever she became interested in one, she would do everything to catch his attention, but when she was bored with him, he would be thrown away like a broken toy. Those 'toys' would then be picked up by the female lackeys that she kept around her, which is how she secured their loyalty. Unknown to many, she also had a personal vendetta against Ranma. Sometime at the beginning of her High School year, the ponytailed martial artist became her target. She tried to get close to him, yet she would always be ignored by him as he had almost inhuman concentration when it came to martial arts. It was the first time that she had been rejected. From then on she tried many things to ensnare him. She arranged encounters, made traps for him to fall in and get into an inappropriate position with her, but none of that worked. His good reflexes allowed him to avoid the traps and the encounters failed to get a reaction from him. Frustration from the failures turned into hate as she began to start bad rumors about him, but they always failed to take hold. His good nature along with eagerness to help has always kept his image positive amongst the students. It helped that he was also easy on the eyes and it was only his fixation on his art that kept him from becoming truly popular. After that had failed she resorted to sending boys after him, but it seemed that she forgot that it was his specialty as they would always fail to defeat him.

When she heard that he had disappeared during the school's earthquake collapse she was almost beside herself with glee. But after a week he returned as a girl with the most handsome man she had ever laid her eyes on. A man that turned out to be every girl's fantasy since he was a real life prince with power and wealth, but he only had eyes for Ranma. The boy-turned-girls good looks also transferred to her new body. The boys began to flock to the fake girl, and Izumi's position as the number one in school was beginning to topple.

Now, after a week of brooding, Izumi was ready to begin her revenge. Today seemed almost perfect as the Prince wasn't around, and both Ranma and her friend seemed ripe for the picking. However, during her brief planning it never occurred to her that Ranma was still a martial artist, and that her friend was one as well. Both of them would be perfectly capable of defending themselves.

"You know, it amazes me how this school finds it acceptable for a pair of freaks like you to attend." Finding her targets still changing clothes at the side of the room, Izumi walked over with her two trusty lackeys at her side and opened the first salvo.

"What?" Ranma was the first one to react since Akane was too stunned that this was happening. Just when she had thought that everything wasn't as bad as she expected it would be…

"I mean, one is a girl that turns into a boy, and the other is a fake girl. Why would someone like the Prince pick a fake is beyond me…" A small group of girls started to gather behind her as they had similar views, but mostly it was because they were jealous that Ranma would have a fiancée like Emilio when they didn't even have boyfriends. "Why don't you break up with the Prince? I'm sure he deserves to have a REAL girl at his side."

She was lucky that Ranma didn't fight those without training, and that Akane was trying to hold back her anger lest she transform again. The girl would have deserved the beating. Fortunately the two martial artists didn't have to do anything as there were people willing to stand up for them inside the room.

"Hey! Who do you think you are! They are already engaged! Ranma and Emilio were made for each other!" It appeared that there were a few members of Ranma's fan club inside, as they began to argue with Izumi's group they were bolstered by the girls who've had their boyfriends or love interests stolen away by the tall girl.

Ranma twitched as the girls defended her and Akane. It wasn't that she was ungrateful but some of the things they were saying really got on her nerves. As the volume inside the room began to rise Ranma prepared to intervene before things got out of hand. Once again, someone beat her to it.

"Can't you keep it down?" A clear, commanding voice went through the room. Everyone stopped what they were doing to look at the source of it.

The person who had spoken just now was a blonde, foreign girl. Her long hair was held back by a headband and she was still wearing her uniform despite having been inside the room for a while. A few girls had noticed her earlier but paid her no mind as she looked to be in a world of her own. Even though the tone she used was condescending, it somehow seemed to fit her well as she exuded an air of nobility.

"Who is she?" "I think she's a new transfer…" "She's in my class! Her name is Alicia Valvert." The girls murmured in the room until they figured out who she was. They were ignored by Alicia who was examining her clothes then patted herself on the shoulder, like she was brushing something off.

"The room is dusty enough as it is. If you continue to make a commotion like this, all of it is going to get blown everywhere." She finished checking her clothes and sighed with great exaggeration. "This is why I don't like peasants, they are primitive and uncultured…"

"What did you say?" girls on both sides turned to glare at her in unison. Izumi was particularly offended by this. She walked up to the foreign girl and grabbed her by the shirt.

"How DARE you touch me!" The girl was stunned when Alicia reacted by pulling her hand away and slapping her on the face. Before she could do anything about it a teacher suddenly came in and demanded to know what was taking them so long.

"How much time are you girls planning to take! Get moving!" The teacher had the girls moving in panic as they hurried to finish, the room emptied not long after and the only people left were Ranma, Akane, and Alicia.

"Thanks…I guess." Ranma told the taller blonde girl.

"Whatever for? I was merely telling them off for making such a noise."

"Well, it helped us in the end. So, thanks." Akane added.

"It seems that there still are people who understand etiquette…" Alicia gave them a smile and looked out the window again for a few moments. She turned around to observe their attire and fidgeted with her own clothing. The girl seemed to struggle with herself for a moment before coming to a decision.

"Very well, I name the two of you as my servants."

"Huh?" Both Ranma and Akane were rather surprised at the turn of events.

"If you understand, then take off my clothes. Helping their master change attire is part of a servant's duty, after all." The blond girl tried to hide it, but there was a faint hint of a blush on her face as she raised her arms to let them do as ordered. If they hadn't been concentrating on her, they might have missed it. Combining that observation with how long she had been inside the room and the way she was fiddling with her clothes earlier…

'She can't change clothes on her own?! Just what kinds of customs does her country have?' they both thought in surprise.

Even though Ranma was used to changing her little sister's clothing, doing it for a grown girl was another matter entirely. She looked to Akane for help. Said girl sighed before moving towards Alicia. As she watched the blonde get changed by Akane, Ranma was suddenly reminded of the way the maids would do that for her in the Ordlock Castle. The thump of a garment hitting the ground brought her out of her thoughts, and she finally noticed where she was looking. She quickly averted her eyes, blushing heavily.

The students were soon all accounted for and boarded the rented buses. It was a short trip to the nearby mountain. After a brief headcount, everyone gathered near the starting line, hoping to get a good position before the start of the race.

Ranma, and Akane grouped together along with Alicia as they waited for the beginning of the race. Akane rested in the shade of a parasol with Alicia since the foreign girl had complained about the sunlight being too bright. She had brought her own folding parasol so she decided to share with the girl. They stood a bit behind the crowd at the starting line since they weren't worried about getting a head start. If it were a martial arts marathon race they possibly would have acted otherwise; then again, who has ever heard of such a thing?

* * *

Meanwhile Prince Emilio was getting annoyed as he waited for the other guests to finish giving their congratulations. Today was the grand unveiling of the latest artwork from one of the Kings whose country is under their protection. As the King of Ordlock was still unavailable, Emilio was invited in his stead as the guest of honor.

"How long is this ceremony going to last?" his brow was twitching as he watched another king from their alliance standing up to offer his praise.

"Errm...there will be 300 people after this one, My Lord." Grindelwald, Emilio's Prime Minister, stated after looking up from the list he held in his hands. He was a balding man in his middle ages, with whatever hair he still had left around his head kept long enough to hang down to his shoulders. "At the rate events are proceeding, the ceremony will conclude before the end of the day."

"I grow tired of this." Emilio stood up, others in the room turned to look at him at the scraping sound. As the guest of honor, he was placed to be the most visible, and soon everyone had their attention upon what was happening here.

"Please! Your Highness! Please reconsider!" the balding man pleaded. "Kings of every powerful world that are known are in attendance of this ceremony…If the guest of honor were to leave…"

Though their kingdom was a superpower among the worlds, they still couldn't afford to alienate all the other kingdoms. Emilio acknowledged that fact and reluctantly sat down. Grindelwald sighed in relief as he was finally able to convince his King, but then he began to sweat as he nervously approached him with another matter.

"My Lord, have you reconsidered the requests that Titania brought up?" Titania was the name of another superpower empire, their current successor was a girl around Emilio's age and they have been frequently suggesting that a marriage between the two would help cement the relationship amongst the two powers.

"Haven't I rejected their requests already? Stop repeating yourself."

"B-but they kept pressing their demands…we ended up revealing the location of your Highness," the balding man said as he used a handkerchief to clear the sweat that was beginning to fall from his temple.

"Don't tell me…" The man suddenly had Emilio's full attention. They would have already known about it if he was inside his castle, but recently he has been spending most of his time in Ranma's home world. "Don't tell me you told them about Earth!"

Their conversation was now kept at a low volume and out of the hearing of everyone nearby, as it was the upmost importance that the information wasn't leaked.

"Well, Lady Alicia was rather insistent in her demands…"

"Do you have any idea what she would do if she were to get angered?!" Emilio couldn't help but become worried about Ranma's safety, but for the moment he was still stuck at the ceremony. He just hoped that her identity as his fiancée hasn't been found out yet.

* * *

Back on Earth, Heimei High School's annual marathon was about to go full swing. Everyone was excited as they waited for the starting signal, though there was a small group that was getting eager for entirely different reasons. A trio of girls stood at the head of various other girls as they observed a particular group in the crowd.

"That Ranma is pissing me off again!" Izumi ground her teeth in anger as her two lackeys nodded in agreement. This time she was irritated over the fact that the boys who weren't concentrating on the competition had gathered to watch Ranma in her bloomers. It didn't help that there were two other cute girls with the redheaded girl but the main point was that none of them were paying attention to her! The queen of Heimei High!

Of course, that was a title that she bestowed upon herself as no one actually called her that. Though she had a large amount of influence over the students, she held nowhere near the amount needed to control the school. At most she held sway over those near her age, but that was quickly being eroded by the rising popularity of the boy turned girl. She still had her lackeys, and chief among them were two girls that were often seen at her side. Now one of them approached her. "That Alicia girl, she sure had a lot of nerve to talk to you like that."

"You know, out here in the mountains there is no one keeping tabs on us. We can arrange for her to have a little 'accident'." The other one offered, then grinned evilly as an idea came to her. "We can take care of Ranma as well."

It completely went over their mind that everything they had tried to do to her before had failed. The other girls in the group smirked as they imagined that the Prince will begin to pay attention to them once Ranma was out of the way. On the other side with the boys, they were becoming restless for different reasons, as their currently lust filled minds led them to another conclusion.

The group that Ranma was in suddenly felt an inexplicable pressure behind their backs as the teachers prepared to signal the start of the race. Ryoga had joined them some time during the wait. But he kept quiet as he would stutter when facing Ranma and the cold glare Akane sent him made sure that he was looking nowhere near the girl's direction. Normally he would not participate in event such as this due to his directional problem, but with Ranma acting as a beacon he was sure he could manage to remain somewhat on track. That it had the added bonus of keeping him close to her was left unsaid. However, if anything went wrong he still had his equipment with him, the teachers allowed him to keep them given his disability. To a normal person though, the heavy backpack would have been dead weight in a race.

The signal gun went off, and everyone sped off the line. It was when they sprinted out of the sight of the teachers that things began to take a strange turn.

"My eyes can no longer see anything but the three of you" a boy stated as he stood in their path, though he seemed to have completely ignored the fact that Ryoga was in the group as well. As the girls stopped in surprise, the boy took advantage of that and jumped towards them seeking to take them into his arms. His progress was suddenly halted by a large piece of rock landing upon his head.

"Damn it! I missed! Where did that guy come from?" the girl that had thrown the rock said. Behind her more girls gathered with their makeshift weapons. Branches, stones, or whatever they could find in the forest. The boys also followed behind closely, they were angry that the one that was downed made the first move when they had agreed to confess together.

The martial artists in the group soon joined the fray as they either tried to maim Ranma or ask her out, depending on their gender. The redheaded girl and her three companions were surrounded on all sides, and were soon broken up as they fended off their opponents, minding that there was a noncombatant in their group. Ryoga seemed to have gotten lost while fighting someone, and Akane was forced to go in another direction by her opponents. The girl was still struggling to keep herself calm, knowing what would happen if she were to give in to her anger. Ranma was soon forced to head off the road along with Alicia. She wasn't able to concentrate much on the fight since she had to take care that the transfer student wasn't mobbed in the confusion.

"Well, we should be safe here for now." Ranma stopped once she felt they were deep enough into the forest, dragging Alicia behind her.

"What in the world was that about!" the foreign girl complained. "To make such a barbaric competition out of physical exertion, and then attack all of a sudden. I should have known better to expect anything from these plebeians."

It appears there was some sort of misunderstanding going on. Ranma stared blankly at Alicia for a while before trying to explain, but the girl was too into her tirade to notice.

"That wasn't actually part of the marathon…." Ranma sweated as the girl completely ignored her, so she coughed loudly to get her attention. "We should probably get moving, there's no telling when they'll manage to find us here."

"Are you telling me to go through such a dirty place?" She pointed at a nearby trail. "This is not what I had planned when I thought of seeing what the fuss you commoners were making. There is no way I will soil my clothing."

Alicia crossed her arms and refused to budge. "Also I am too tired to move anyway, so you'll just have to carry me."

'Is she for real?' Ranma thought as she looked at the blonde girl in disbelief. From the girl's expression it would be expected that she would be obstinate about it. There really didn't seem to be any other option. Ranma sighed.

"Fine," the red headed girl stated before moving in. She put one arm behind Alicia's knees and lifted her up while using her other arm to steady her back. The girl let out a cry of surprise at being picked up so suddenly, but closed her eyes in concentration for a moment.

"Warn me before you do something like that!" Alicia berated her before looking away, a bit embarrassed. Ranma looked at her in confusion. Her little sister Akari had always said that this was the proper way to carry a girl, maybe she had misunderstood and grown-up girls weren't carried this way?

The blonde transfer student was surprisingly light for her height, though she seemed to have been quite a bit heavier when picking her up. It was a bit of a mystery but Ranma dismissed it as part of her imagination before moving on to more important things. Though lighter than expected, the weight would still have been too much for an ordinary girl. Then again, Ranma was anything but ordinary.

"Hold on tight." This was the only warning the girl had before Ranma went down the trail at a fast pace. Though she wasn't sprinting outright, Alicia was still impressed at the speed Ranma was going despite having her in her arms.

From a bystander's point of view, the sight of a short girl carrying a much taller one would have been somewhat hilarious. However appearances would have been the last thing on either girl's mind at the moment as they had been found by members of one of the groups searching for them. The boys seem to be trying to tackle them as Ranma nimbly weaved out of their way while still heading forward.

"Geez, don't they know when to give up?" Ranma complained as she dodged a few more people. The trail was too narrow to fight in and she also had her passenger to consider. The only thing she could do now was to reach the clearing ahead where she could hopefully let Alicia down and fend them off. A few more boys stood in their path but she made quick work of them, and she finally arrived at her destination. To her dismay, another group of boys had already gathered and jumped them the moment they arrived in the open space. She barely had time to react.

A large beam of light suddenly dug out a small trench between the girls and the boys, interrupting their attack. They all turned to face the source.

"To think that I had only merely taken my eyes off for a few moments…" The guys all paled as the figure of Emilio stepped out from behind the trees. He was still decked in full regalia, hinting that he had arrived here directly from the ceremony he had been attending. He moved his attention towards Ranma, ignoring the girl she was holding since she had her back to him. "Ranma, is everything alright?"

Before Ranma had a chance to answer, Alicia jumped out of her arms and embraced the Prince. "Milord…! I was so afraid!"

Her eyes were watery as she hugged Emilio, acting the part of a scared maiden facing her rescuer. Her attitude was a complete 180 from the way she was before. The Prince was startled as he finally realized who exactly it was that Ranma had been holding. "Aah! Alicia?!"

The noise they had been making drew in the other groups that had broken off to search for them, and the girls soon gathered at the clearing as well. Heedless to say they weren't happy to see the new girl getting so close to their dream man.

"What do you think you're doing?!" Izumi pointed at the girl currently hanging of the Prince's neck. Said Prince was struggling to dislodge her and failing. The girl turned towards them with a smug look before finally releasing Emilio.

"Now that I think of it, I never formally introduced myself." She turned to face them, keeping Emilio within her reach. "I am Alicia Valvert, Princess of the planet Titania."

As if being an alien princess wasn't surprising enough, what she said next shook them to the core. "I am also, the fiancée of Prince Emilio."

"The prince's…fiancée?" Most of the girls parroted her. Some of them were quite confused.

"It is expected that you would be shocked. I suppose Milord is also at fault here." She looked to her side at Emilio, who had turned his back to the group. "They say you have withdrawn from your loyal lifestyle. To think you would come around and mess around with commoners…"

"Wait a minute! What's all this talk of fiancées and commoners about?" One of the girls in the group shouted out.

"I understand your confusion. For one such as I, the Empress of one of the most powerful planets, to come to such a backwater world is simply unheard of." Her speech only added to the bewilderment of those present, as most of them had no idea what she was talking about.

"Now the games end here." She walked away from the Prince, moving in a haughty way for what she thought would be the dramatic climax. "Now! My Prince, let us depart! We shall return to the Capital when we will have our wed…"

She turned around to find that Emilio had disappeared during her moment of inattention. The others in the clearing also realized this fact and some of them suddenly noticed that Ranma was gone as well. They all called out for the missing duo.

Using his magic as a booster, Emilio dashed through the forest at high speed, holding Ranma in his arms. The girl had been picked up and taken out of the clearing before anyone had even realized what was going on.

"Wait a minute! Emilio! What is going on?!" She was also bothered by the fact that she was being carried like a girl, but right now the important thing was figuring out what was happening.

"What are you doing all of a sudden?"

"Ranma, you need to get out of here! It is dangerous!" Emilio hastily explained as he tried to plot the fastest route to a safety zone.

"I have no idea what you're talking about! Just put me down!" The Prince tried to elaborate as he continued to head down the path, but Ranma seemed to be quite insistent.

"Now!" The sudden steel in her voice all but forced him to comply. He stopped at another clearing where he gently let her down.

"I didn't know you had a fiancée already." The frozen visage of Ranma was one that Emilio never expected from her, seeing that she appeared to be rather easy-going. He paled as her cold stare seemed to drill into him. If Genma were here right now he would have been shivering in fright while commenting on how she resembled her mother. The only thing lacking was a steel katana to complete the look.

"No…wait! That's…!"

"I had always wondered why you picked a boy like me…" Ranma continued to stare at him. "I am just a plaything to you, isn't that right?"

Emilio was at a loss for words by the sudden turn of events. "Just turn me back into a boy already! Isn't it enough? You already have such a beautiful fiancée! Why do you need to add me into the mix!"

"Look, Ranma…that's not…!" He kept trying to explain but Ranma didn't want to hear any of it.

"How long to you plan to mess around with me? Just turn me back already!"

The prince gritted his teeth in frustration. He stared at her in the eyes for a while before he noticed her current attire. The cute visage of Ranma in her bloomers was too much for him to take and he turned away in embarrassment. "That's impossible."

"At least look at me in the face when you say it!"

Any further discussion was halted as the last person Emilio wanted to find them appeared. Alicia walked down the path as she cast worrying looks around. She seemed to brighten upon finding the two. "Ah, so there you are, Milord. What happened? You gave me quite a shock when you suddenly disappeared like that."

She paused as she realized that Ranma was present as well. "Oh, Ranma. So you are alright… Anyway, Milord, I'm almost at my limit. This barbaric planet is testing the depths of my patience…so why don't we return…"

Both of them were quiet as the girl prattled on. Ranma stared at her in curiosity though she was a bit put out at being dismissed so easily. Meanwhile, Emilio was struggling to come to a decision. He had no plans to marry Alicia, but Titania was one superpower that his country couldn't afford to alienate. Tightening his fists, he decided to come clear once and for all.

"Alicia" The girl stopped in the middle of describing the majestic hall she had ordered to be built for their wedding. "I have no intention of marrying you."

"What do you mean? We are already engaged."

"That was something that was agreed upon by our governments, I don't recall ever making such a pact with you myself."

They were silent for a few moments; the only sound in the clearing was the rustling of leaves as the wind went through the trees. "So? What of it?"

The Prince was stunned at being brushed off like that. "Is there a match other than me in terms of wealth, lineage and power?"

"When you take into consideration the political power of Titania, I could easily veto your right to succeed the throne if I were to rally our allies behind us." The smile on her face turned smug. "I don't believe that Milord would have any choice in this matter."

Emilio frowned at the threat, but he held fast. "I am sorry, but I have already decided on my queen."

"What! But I have already sent out the wedding invitations! Who is she?!" Alicia began listing their mutual acquaintances, but the prince answered in the negative to all of them. It appeared that she was running out of candidates, and just before she could make the connection between the Prince and Ranma, Emilio decided to act first.

"Ranma, run away." He whispered to her, trying not to draw Alicia's attention towards them. His suggestion was shot down, rather loudly.

"No way. Why do I have to run away?" Ranma spoke out.

"Why can't you just listen to me for once!" In his frustration, he forgot about the threat they were in and turned around to argue with her. He noticed too late that Alicia's sight was firmly on them. He turned around to try and block Ranma from her view, opening his arms wide as if he were trying to prevent her from getting past him.

It was a useless gesture, and quite childish if one were to think about it. Alicia watched in disbelief at his antics, which were a far cry from what she expected of the successor to one of the superpowers. "No…It can't be…all this time…"

"No, wait. Alicia…Ranma is…!" The frantic way he tried to deny it all but confirmed Alicia's suspicions.

"This is ridiculous…and with this filthy commoner girl?"

Ranma immediately took offense to that comment. "Hey! Wait a minute! Who are you calling a girl!"

She continued with her tirade, not knowing that she was only adding fuel to a fire. "I'm a guy! I'm only this way because that stupid prince used some weird medicine of his to turn me into a girl!"

"Unbelievable!" Emilio immediately started to panic as the foreign princess started trembling. Veins were bulging all over her body as she seemed to close in on herself, trying to hold something back. The Prince grabbed Ranma in a fireman's carry and began running away from the scene.

"I'm the most beautiful and powerful woman in history…Yet, I lose to a borderland peasant? Not only that, but a man?!"

The Prince was working quickly to escape as they ran out of sight of Alicia. Ranma looked behind him from her vantage point to try and figure out what was happening with the girl. Emilio however was trying to put as much distance between them as possible. "This is bad, she is at her limit!"

Trees toppled as Alicia grew outside the bounds of the tree line. She rapidly reached a few stories high as she ripped a few trees out with their roots in her anger. Everyone's attention was drawn to her as she roared at the injustice of things.

"I CANNOT ACCEPT THIS!" the giantess cried out. The ground actually trembled a bit from the sound. If she suddenly grew a tail and spat fire then this would have resembled a scene from a bad monster movie.

"What the heck is that?" Ranma shouted over the noise the giant princess was making.

"Alicia is the princess of the Titan tribe from Titania." Emilio hurriedly explained as he tried to pick up the pace. "People from the Titan tribe ordinarily have a large build, but when blood rushes to their heads they become giants and can go on a rampage. That's part of why they're feared amongst the worlds."

Ranma continued to observe the girl as she stomped around trying to find them. The prince kept to the trees and the thick foliage hid them from the giant girl's sight. The same couldn't be said for the crowd that had formed during the commotion that Alicia was making. Unfortunately for them, a prideful girl such as she simply couldn't stand the thought of being seen in such a shameful state.

Everyone who has seen her in this disgraceful form cannot be left alive.

It was time for Ranma to act.

The crowd quickly dispersed as Alicia bent over to try and squash them with her fists. Those in the clearing hid themselves in the trees whereas the ones not fast enough narrowly avoided being squished, whether by luck or by mercy on Alicia's part, one has to wonder.

Ranma slid out of the grasp of the Prince and immediately headed towards the clearing where Alicia was currently wreaking havoc.

"Where are you going Ranma, we have to get you out of here!" Emilio chased after her, trying to get her to come back.

"You think I would run away while there are innocent lives at risk here?"

"That's suicide, what hope can you have against a giant?" The two continued to run down the path as Ranma began making plans

"Well, who knows? I could be more resourceful than you think." Ranma gave him a confident smile before she suddenly jumped off the trail and out of his sight, leaving the prince to skid to a stop at her sudden departure.

"That girl…" This proved to Emilio that his judgment of Ranma's character wasn't wrong. She really was different from those narrow minded and selfish nobles. But doesn't she have any regard for her own life? He stared at the spot where she disappeared for a few moments before he headed down towards the source of the current commotion.

"Alic…" The Prince cried out to get the giant girl's attention, but a red blur beat him to it.

"Hey! Princess! Were you looking for me?" Ranma jumped into the clearing, right at Alicia's feet. The girl paused in her smashing as the object of her current ire appeared.

"So there you are, you thieving…" She reached out a hand to grab the red headed girl but she was nimble enough to get out of the way.

"Well, you found me. But can you catch me?" Ranma pulled on her eyelid while sticking out her tongue in a taunt. The immature gesture seemed to enrage the giant girl and she began chasing her, giving the rest of the people nearby a chance to escape.

With a single stride, Alicia could easily overtake her. But escape was not on Ranma's mind as she ran circles around the giantess's feet. Eventually the girl gave up on grabbing her and resorted to stomping around again.

Nearby, Emilio could only watch in dismay as Alicia tried to squash Ranma like a bug. It spoke well of his intended's skills of evasion, but he wondered how long she could keep it up. Originally he would have tried to talk Alicia out of it, and if all else failed there was still his magic. It would only be as a last resort since he could not risk open conflict with her. To do so would disrupt any diplomatic ties between their countries. Right now it was looking as if it was becoming the only option.

Luckily for him things didn't have to go that way, for help had arrived in the form of two martial artists.

"Don't worry, Ranma! I'll save you!" It took some while, but the lost boy was finally able to home in on Ranma's aura.

Meanwhile, Akane stumbled out the other side of the clearing. Her clothing was in tatters. The girls she had faced seemed to have been quite vicious, and she wasn't able to fight at full strength since she was trying to keep her temper in check. However it looks like the events of the day were finally getting to her.

"First there was that stupid prince with that medicine of his, then the marathon happened and we were mobbed…" Veins bulged as Akane tightened her fists. "…and now there are giants going around?! I've had it!"

Facing the threat of being changed into a boy was good training for keeping a lid on her short fused temper, but even that had its limits. The already torn gym clothes she had on turned into rags, while the shorts showed that they were stretchable as they remained tightly on. Akane now appeared as a well muscled young man wearing shorts while hints of a well defined chest showed through the pieces of clothing that still hung on him.

Ryoga charged in with his umbrella only to be knocked back by a heavy footstep. Ranma called out in warning as he wasn't as fast as she was, so it would be difficult for him to dodge. She was already showing hints of fatigue in her voice, and probably couldn't keep it up much longer. Ryoga looked around before spotting a large boulder sitting on the side. He headed over it and picked it up using his incredible strength, checking its weight. Finding it within the range of something he could handle, he waited for an opening.

On the other side of the clearing it appears that the currently male Akane had a similar idea. He had picked up one of the fallen trees that were torn out by Alicia and was currently swinging it around. In his female body it would have been a bit too much for him to handle, but it seems that his male form was a bit stronger than his original form.

Without having coordinated it beforehand, both of them threw their projectiles at the same time. Their aim was true, hitting Alicia on the head and making her fall on her face. Ranma managed to get out of the way as the giant girl fell down.

"Whew, thanks guys. I could have managed it myself, but it was getting a bit close there." Ranma wiped the sweat on her forehead as the two came over to check on her, followed behind by Emilio.

"It appears that I need to give you Earthlings more credit." Emilio commented while observing the fallen form of the giant girl. Ranma however was ignoring him at the moment as she picked up a nearby stick and was poking Alicia's hand to check that she really was unconscious.

'Wait a minute, why is she still in her giant form? If she had been knocked out then she would have changed back by now.' The Prince's realization came too late as the hand Ranma was poking at suddenly turned around and grabbed her. The three quickly got out of the way as the giant girl rose from the ground.

"I've finally caught you! You homewrecker!" Those that were stupid enough to remain nearby sweated at her use of words. In her current form Alicia was more suited to being described as a "home wrecker", in the literal sense.

"Alicia! Why you…" Emilio cried out as the girl currently held a struggling Ranma in her grasp.

"Ah! Hold it! If you try to do anything, I'm going to flatten Ranma!" Alicia raised Ranma to the top of her head, threatening to throw her to the ground at full strength.

"Dammit! What are your demands?" With a hostage in her hands, there was nothing Emilio could do but to negotiate the terms.

"It's like I already decided. You have to marry me!" she announced, but it was obvious from the expression on the Prince's face that it was the one thing he would not budge on. "…or do you not care what happens to this person here?"

She tightened her grasp, making Ranma cry out in pain.

"Emilio! You don't have to worry about me!" Ranma shouted out through gritted teeth, making the Prince feel touched that she still thought of him in this situation. It was imperative that he made sure she is released safely.

"Which is why, I wish the two of you happiness." She finished her sentence once the hand was no longer crushing her. Those who still remained on scene nearly stumbled at this sudden turn of events, and even Alicia was a bit surprised.

"What is it about me that you aren't satisfied about? I have everything! The beauty, the power…" While Alicia tried to figure out the Prince's preferences, the students that had gathered on another clearing nearby commented on how it must have been her personality.

"Why do you have to choose somebody with nothing…"

"This isn't a trade." Emilio calmly stated. Alicia went silent at the serious expression on his face. "That day, Ranma decided to save me."

"While fully aware of the dangers, without any thoughts of payment, Ranma still jumped in…" Those that could hear him hung onto every word of his heartfelt confession. Even Ranma felt a bit of a surprise. It reminded her of that day in the Chinese forest under the starry night. She quickly shook her head to clear her mind of the strange feelings that memory evoked. Right now the important thing was to try and get out of the girl's grasp.

"That is what I like about Ranma." Emilio gave the red headed girl a gentle smile. It was something that he rarely let show in public. "Don't worry Ranma, if anything were to happen to you, I would surely follow."

With that, Alicia knew that she never stood a chance. "Well, if the two of you are so eager to be together, then you can join in the afterworld!"

Pulling her arm back, Alicia raised Ranma as high as she could, preparing to throw her and make her become a pancake on the ground. However, while being surprised earlier on by Ranma, her grip had loosened enough for her to slip slightly, leaving her head at the perfect level to attack.

With her arms trapped, the only weapon she had left was her teeth. Ranma bit down hard on the finger, even drawing a bit of blood. Alicia flinched in response and instinctively let go, leaving Ranma to freefall through the air. The spectators gasped in surprise but aerial maneuvers were one of the specialties of the Saotome School. As she righted herself in mid air, she failed to notice where she was going and fell right through the neck line of Alicia's shirt.

"Wait…what! Where are you…not there! AHAHAHA…" It appears that Alicia was quite ticklish and Ranma moving around in there trying to get out proved to be quite a torture. The girl was crawling around in the tight and dark space and eventually made her way to someplace that had more room, only to get her hand caught on something as she slipped.

Outside, Alicia's short fuse was lit. In a fit of anger she tore open her top. Ranma sighed in relief at finally being able to see, to her surprise her arm was caught in the latch that held up the girl's bra. Down below the males in the group gasped in awe at the twin peaks that were revealed, yet still hidden by the monster sized undergarment.

Alicia was angered at being forced to give a free show, and grew even more determined to get her. Try as she might, her fingers fell short of reaching the latch that Ranma was trapped in. Both struggled to release it, and during all that moving around it finally came free. Ranma and the bra both fell before she realized what had happened. A blur caught the falling girl and disappeared into the forest whereas the garment gradually shrunk as it drifted down to the ground.

Now finally aware of her current status of attire, Alicia let out a feminine cry before covering her chest with her arms. The embarrassment of being exposed overcame her anger and she began to shrink down. On the ground the crowd stared in shock as she gradually disappeared from their sight. Quite a few male students had hands covering their noses to prevent it from bleeding.

They rapidly dispersed before the giantess could make a comeback, but they shouldn't have worried. In her current state she would be too embarrassed to gather the necessary anger to transform. That is not to say that they would be glad to let her see them.

As the half-dressed girl wandered through the forest they all hid from her as she was still swearing revenge with her every other breath. One by one they managed to escape as she went past, though eventually she managed to cool down.

"Now that I think of it, is there anyone here who could bring me something to change into?!" The girl looked to be almost in tears as she hadn't seen anyone for hours. Unknown to her, Ranma and Emilio had been following behind. Deciding to take pity on her, Ranma sneaked ahead and left her shirt hanging on a low branch.

"Alicia is the persistent type; it's going to be troublesome from now on." Emilio commented as he removed his jacket to cover the now topless Ranma once she returned.

"Don't say that as if it didn't concern you." Ranma said as she watched the girl find the clothing she had left. Alicia looked around but saw no one. Since she still had no idea how to put it on she merely used it to cover herself before running down the path. The trail will soon end ahead, so she should be able to find her way back to civilization.

"I've had enough excitement for one day. Let's just go home." The Prince merely nodded before following her. With all the disruptions the marathon was left inconclusive. The rest of the staff and students had already gone home before the sun went down. The alien princess was left to their care as the teachers wouldn't have any idea what to do with her. Akane needed a change of clothing after she managed to return to her birth from, so she excused herself earlier, and Ryoga somehow managed to get lost again.

This left the couple to walk home together. They both still had a lot of things on their minds, so the time was spent quietly for once; without their usual bickering.

Though they would still have to explain to Nodoka why her daughter walked home wearing Emilio's jacket while missing her top.

* * *

Author's Note:

Finally, someplace to cut off this chapter at a satisfying length! There were already different parts where I could have ended this chapter, but having set a certain word count and a cutoff point beforehand I kept pushing myself to write more.

Not to mention that my muse would run off at random times and I would also become distracted by other things…

One thing is for sure, it feels like pulling teeth when you try to write without your muse there. Buts sometimes you just have to keep going to tempt it to come back.

Though originally I wanted to end this chapter with the Alicia arc, I felt that having it finish with this climax would be good as well.

Oh, and I'm sure that there would be some people that will complain about what happened to Akane, but there's a reason for that. In the original version she was in danger of being sidelined, so I needed something to make her part in the story more significant.

Fortunately something came up during a discussion with Vahn and I took that idea, which developed into this.

Anyway, the next chapter will deal with the conclusion of the Alicia arc, and hopefully I will start to introduce more Ranma characters. I just need to figure out how they will fit into the timeline.

I took some liberties with a few character's background as Sekainohate is similar to Ranma 1/2 in that regard. Many things weren't explained and left to the reader's imagination. Of course, this gives a writer more space to work with.

I've also borrowed a few characters from Yuruyuri again, since they were Akari's best friends I felt it was appropriate that they appear here. I'm unsure if they'll make another appearance. If I make this a trend then I might as well cross it over with that series as well.

Thanks again to Vahn who I usually bounce ideas off for this story.

2014/7/5 Chapter finished.

2014/7/6 Added a small description of Akane's male form, as per the suggestion.


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